


then in the forest i made my home

by randolhllee



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017), The Worst Witch - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, Pippa does kind of swoop into town and get everyone hype about modern magic, Worry not, although there is a HEAVY dose of Hicsqueak, but it's more about Hecate and her community, shall we call it a Music Man AU?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-03-18
Packaged: 2019-10-13 16:52:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 30,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17491694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/randolhllee/pseuds/randolhllee
Summary: Between teaching classes, training two apprentices, and running her potions shop, Hecate Hardbroom has no time for nonsense. The witching community is quick to notice, then, that she not only takes on the non-magically-raised Mildred Hubble as a student but chooses her over Ethel Hallow as a replacement apprentice when Esmerelda Hallow loses all her magic.Thus begins the vendetta of an angry and politically powerful family against Hecate. Suddenly, her shop is in danger of losing its license, the legality of her patents is in question, and rumors of her treatment of her students suddenly abound. What's more, she can't understand or fix what's happened to Esmerelda, and it stirs up painful memories that she can't lay to rest. At the same time, her old friend Pippa Pentangle is leading a craze for modern magical practices as an educational consultant at the behest of the Council. Faced with a choice of bowing to popular opinion or leaving the town she has come to call home, Hecate isn’t sure she has the willpower to fight a community that doesn’t seem to want her anymore.[updates Wednesdays and Sundays]





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is an alternate universe, in which instead of schools, education is community-based. Witches who have specialized in certain types of magic teach classes to younger students until they reach age fifteen or sixteen. Those wishing to specialize themselves then serve as apprentices, usually from about age sixteen to eighteen. Here, Hecate is still a potions instructor, but she teaches out of her shop and lab, while Pippa is an advocate for more modern forms of witching education like colleges and school boards. All the children have been aged up by a few years, as they're in their apprenticeship years for the most part. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> (title from the song "And If My Heart Should Somehow Stop" by James Vincent McMorrow-- give it a listen!)

In retrospect, the course of Mildred Hubble’s first day as her apprentice should have been utterly predictable to Hecate, even without resorting to scrying.

“Mildred. Hubble!”

Hecate raised her voice on the last syllable and threw the name of her second apprentice up the stairs.

“She was awake when I came down,” Maud told her anxiously. “She said she’d be down in a moment.”

“It has now been—” Hecate checked her pendant watch and _tsk_ ed. “ _Several_ moments since you made your appearance. This is hardly the way to make an impression on your first day,” she told Maud severely. She softened when she saw Maud’s pained face. It certainly was not the girl’s fault that her fellow apprentice was so abysmally tardy for everything.

“You’d better go through to breakfast,” Hecate advised the younger witch. “I’ll— _deal_ with Miss Hubble.”

Maud appeared confused.

“I had some toast before I came down, Miss Hardbroom?”

Hecate sighed.

“Are you asking a question or making a statement?” Before Maud could answer, Hecate sighed and went on. “Never mind. You are my apprentice, Miss Spellbody. While you are under my roof, I will provide meals each day to ensure that you receive the proper nutrients, and so I may give you your instructions for the day.”

Maud nodded, nearly dropping a curtsy.

“Yes, Miss.”

As she scurried towards the back room, Hecate shut her eyes and tipped her head back. She needed a moment before she mounted the stairs to deal with her erstwhile second apprentice.

“Look out!”

“Oof!”

Her moment was rudely interrupted by a whooshing noise, shouting, and the sudden impact of a sixteen-year-old girl with Hecate’s midriff.

“Mildred HUBBLE!” Hecate began to yell even before the dust settled. “What _were_ you thinking?”

The gangly girl hovered, eventually settling on trying to hoist her teacher up by the arm.

“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! I was trying to get ready and then I didn’t want to be late so I thought I’d levitate down but I lost control on the way and went too fast and I’m so, so sorry!”

Hecate finally managed to stand, despite Mildred’s enthusiastic ‘help.’ Mussed hair and rumpled dress notwithstanding, she managed to strike the most menacing pose in her repertoire as she towered over her apprentice. It was harder than it had been when Mildred was a pigtailed child of twelve, but she managed nonetheless.

“Mildred Hubble, when you are in my house you will abide by my rules, is that clear?”

Mildred nodded quickly. “But Miss Hardbroom, you never said—”

Hecate cut her off with an imperious wave of her hand.

“I should not have to tell an adult witch such as yourself to be cautious with her magic,” she informed Mildred, placing the emphasis on _adult_. “I am no longer simply your potions mistress. I am responsible for your education, but _you_ are responsible for your conduct whilst I provide it.” She was building up steam, finding her tempo after having been knocked off track by Mildred’s flight.

“There is to be no one list of rules by which you must abide,” she continued. “You will conduct yourself according to your own good sense, should there exist any in that scattered brain of yours, and the lessons which your elders, including myself, have done our best to instill in you for the past six years.” She regarded Mildred severely and judged that she looked sufficiently cowed. “You may join Miss Spellbody in the kitchen for your breakfast.”

“Breakfast?” Mildred perked up considerably at that. “That’s the bats, HB! Thanks!” Hecate’s midsection was assaulted for the second time that morning, this time by a hug. Mildred clattered away down the hall, and Hecate was left to wonder if her lectures on the proper comportment of a witch would ever make it into her student’s head.

* * *

 

Two dropped forks and an overturned jam-pot later, Hecate deemed her new apprentices sufficiently fed to begin a day’s work. At the very least, it was time to get Mildred away from the table before she broke the teapot and cursed them all. Hecate set down her silverware and wiped her mouth before addressing her suspiciously silent students.

“Today we will begin with the filing system. A proper filing system is crucial to ensure good order and safe delivery of potions to their correct usage. Miss Spellbody, from the preparatory reading I asked you to complete, what is the most commonly used system of potions organization?”

Maud looked a bit stunned, as she had all morning.

“Um—well—”

Hecate sighed inwardly. Maud had been one of her brightest junior students, but she was also nervous when put on the spot.

“’S the one indexed by purpose and then by level, isn’t it?” Mildred ventured.

Hecate raised an eyebrow and turned to regard Mildred.

“And what might it be called, Miss Hubble?”

Mildred looked at the table, shaking her head.

“Frogspot’s?” Maud picked up the thread left by her companion. “It was invented by Millicent Frogspot.”

“Indeed.” Hecate nodded in approval. “Mildred, could you elaborate on how the system is organized?”

Mildred hastily finished swallowing down the rest of her tea before responding. When she faltered, Maud picked up the slack, and when Maud forgot a detail, Mildred was there with a reminder.

“—oh! And if there’s a counteracting potion, it’s placed next to the first one, but with a different-colored label. So they can be found quickly in case of accident or emergency,” Mildred pronounced happily. She bounced in her seat and threw Maud a grin, which Maud returned tentatively.

Hecate glanced between the two young witches.

“I see I am to have one apprentice for the price of two,” she commented coolly. Maud winced, but Mildred barely faltered.

“Miss Cackle says that witches have always lived in communities, and that reliance on each other makes us much stronger than we could ever be alone,” she informed Hecate. “Shouldn’t Maud and I help each other, when we can?”

“Not when doing so is intended to obscure the fact that you have not adequately completed your reading assignment,” Hecate retorted. “I suppose Miss Cackle should like to wait for an antidote to a dangerous potion while you consult Maud about where it should be shelved?”

“I guess not,” Mildred replied, abashed. “Will we be shelving potions today?”

Hecate rose and waved her hands. The dishes flew off the table and stacked themselves neatly in the sink.

“Yes, you shall,” she answered, looking down at Mildred and Maud. “Let us begin.”

And with that, she vanished.

“This is going to be fun, isn’t it?” Mildred asked Maud with a twinkle in her eye. Maud giggled.

“Today, Miss Hubble, Miss Spellbody!”

* * *

 

The morning passed as Hecate had expected: she kept an eye on her apprentices as they started a comprehensive review of the potions stock, and tended to any customers who entered the shop herself. A few years ago, it had only taken Esmerelda two weeks to earn her way from the stock room to the main shop; Hecate had no such hopes this year, and had put aside her own independent projects until Mildred and Maud could be relied upon. She did not expect to complete much work on those projects for several months at least.

Whether by luck or by some unearthly intervention, both apprentices made it until lunch without a single dropped potion. Or rather, Mildred had dropped two, but the first was made of thick glass and she caught the second, so Hecate pretended not to notice.

Over the last six years, she had come to a deeper understanding of Mildred’s nature; the girl was imperturbably optimistic and willing to try up to a point, but excessive criticism to drive home a lesson she had already learned was certain to tip her over into despair. Besides, when Mildred needed a bit of help, Maud was less likely to overthink her own work. It was one of the reasons that Hecate had made the unusual choice to start two apprentices at once.

The other reason, of course, could not wait even until she had had her tea to confront her. Its personification swept into the shop just after two in the afternoon.

‘Swept’ was an apt description, for it seemed that Ursula Hallow slammed open the door and dismounted her broom all at once in a clearly practiced grand entrance.

“The Hubble girl, Hecate? Really?”

Hecate assumed an unimpressed expression as Ursula stalked up to the till. It wasn’t difficult; it was her usual state, after all. She was surprised, however, to see Ethel quietly enter the shop in her mother’s wake.

“My choice of apprentice is my own. I wasn’t aware the Council had any authority over that aspect of the Craft.”

Mrs. Hallow sniffed, while Ethel hovered uncertainly near the door.

“Your disapproval of the Council notwithstanding, this is a matter of common decency, Hecate. Steadfastly traditional as you are, you must know how inappropriate this is.”

Hecate raised her eyebrows eloquently.

“Please, enlighten me.”

Mrs. Hallow huffed.

“She’s not even a witch, not properly!”

Hecate narrowed her eyes dangerously.

“She has magic, which from my perspective marks her a member of our community. Do you dispute that?” She glanced at Ethel, but the girl seemed determined to neither make eye contact nor react in any way to the loud conversation taking place in front of her.

“Of course I do!” Mrs. Hallow punctuated her words with an emphatic jab to the counter. “Her mother’s some Ordinary woman from Goddess knows where, and her father, well, I should be surprised if she even _knew_ who her father was, but no matter who her father was, she is not a witch!”

Hecate clenched her teeth.

“Then what would you say she is, Councilor?”

“A _freak_ ,” Mrs. Hallow breathed menacingly. “We don’t know where her powers came from, they could have been stolen from a real witch for all you know!” At that, Ethel’s eyes flew to her mother.

She looked afraid.

“That is _enough_.” Hecate’s voice grew low and her eyes sharp, pointed, stabbing. “Mildred Hubble is a young witch in my care and I will not stand by and hear her maligned in this fashion. Her powers are her own, and nothing to do with what happened to Esmerelda, Ursula.”

“She was there, wasn’t she?” Ursula’s cracked voice gave a glimpse into the anger and pain driving her.

“As was Ethel,” Hecate reminded her sharply. Her former student was back to staring at the ground, but now she seemed close to tears.

“Esmerelda’s place should have gone to Ethel, and you know it,” Mrs. Hallow hissed. “Not to that, that _disgraceful_ —”

“Leave. Now,” Hecate intoned, her eyes glinting dangerously. “And do not come back.”

With an angry _hmph_ , Mrs. Hallow swept toward the door. Ethel hesitated and seemed on the verge of saying something, but her mother turned around to say one last thing.

“This will not stand, Hecate,” she ground out as she pushed Ethel out the door in front of her. “Don’t think you’ll get away with this.”

Before the door could fall shut on its own, Hecate waved a hand. The slam came with the tinkle of broken glass.

“Miss Hardbroom?” came a tentative voice behind her.

“Yes, Mildred?” Hecate answered quietly, still staring at the door to the shop.

“Is everything alright?”

Hecate glanced behind herself and saw Mildred and Maud. The former hovered on the threshold, while the second peeped out from behind the doorjamb. Hecate flicked her hand and the glass sprang back into place, as if it had never been broken in the first place.

“Yes,” Hecate lied. “Everything is perfectly fine.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hecate attends a meeting of the local teachers' group, which takes a turn she wishes it hadn't.

Hecate strode down the high street, so deep in thought that she’d opted to walk instead of transferring. Her echinacea plants were browning from the roots up, and she couldn’t for the life of her think why. At any rate, thoughts of plant husbandry were a welcome distraction from the memory of Ursula Hallow’s visit that afternoon. She barely even noticed the cold wind nipping at her cheeks until she was stepping into the cozy warmth of Cackle’s Tea and Cakes. The heat from the fire stung as it chased away the chill.

“Hecate!” Ada greeted her, as she had since the day they met, by clasping her hands warmly before delivering the traditional ‘well met.’ “Do come in, it’s cold as anything out there.”

“It _is_ October,” Hecate reminded her. “This is perfectly standard for this time of year.”

“Of course, Hecate,” Ada smiled. “And I have some lovely pumpkin scones to celebrate the season.” She bustled away before Hecate could decline.

Hecate turned to hang her cloak, but was immediately accosted by another familiar voice.

“Oi! HB!”

Hecate finished and turned to confront her heckler.

“Well met, Dimity. I see the weather has not cooled your fervor for rudeness,” she greeted the younger witch coolly. She nodded to Miss Bat next to Dimity, and traded murmured ‘well mets.’

“Not at all,” Dimity agreed cheerfully, ignoring all attempts at traditional greetings, “but it’s sweet that you care so much.”

Hecate sniffed and scraped a chair out from the next table over to Dimity. Despite her best efforts, Dimity Drill was the only younger teacher who seemed to see her as a friend, rather than simply an odd, menacing figure hovering on the outskirts of village life. Hecate sat primly, consciously keeping herself from toying with the sugar packets on the table from nerves.

“It is a wonder to me that any parent places their child in your care,” she announced.

Dimity grinned wider. Hecate really should have been stricter with her when she’d had her as a student.

“Started with young Enid last week,” she answered readily. “She’ll make a handy flywitch, that’s for sure. No fear at all, that one.”

Hecate shuddered.

“I am well aware of Miss Nightshade’s propensity for dare-devil antics.”

“She was only getting started when you taught her,” Dimity confided. “It’ll take guidance from a licensed rabble-rouser like meself to really get her to her full potential.” She took a decisive swig from the mug in front of her to mark the end of her declaration.

“No doubt,” Hecate drawled. “I shall be careful to transport all my packages myself for the next while.”

Dimity huffed in mock-offense.

“No need for that, HB! ‘Sides, even you can’t transport your potions as far as I can carry them.”

Hecate tipped her head in assent.

“That is true.”

The door opened behind her and three more witches entered just as Ada bustled back in.

“Well! That just leaves a few more—” the door opened again, cutting Ada off. “And there’s Mr. Rowan-Webb, which means we can only be waiting for a few others.”

It seemed as though it took hours for each paired permutation of witches to greet each other, and for the group to settle on how to arrange themselves so that each could talk to the ones they particularly wanted to. No one negotiated to sit by Hecate, and although she traded greetings with a few others, she found herself mostly sitting outside the chatter that always marked the start of a meeting. By the time the last witch had arrived, Ada had conjured up tea and scones for the lot, and Hecate found herself settled in her customary corner for the bimonthly teacher’s meeting.

“If we’re all ready to start, I’ve got some news that we should discuss—” Ada started, but was interrupted by Miss Elmwick.

“Ada, we’re still missing Miss Ravenwell.”

“Very well,” Ada replied. “Perhaps we’ll start on other matters until she arrives. Miss Bat, is it not your turn to lead the meeting?” Ada turned expectantly to the elderly teacher, sitting next to her partner.

Miss Bat looked utterly surprised at this news, but soldiered on.

“Right! Well, I believe most of us who’ve taken apprentices this year have begun with them by now—is that right?” Everyone glanced around and nodded, yes, they had. “Well, how’s that progressing?”

Silence for a moment, then quick gestures indicating who was to begin. Hecate remained steadfastly silent, twirling her watch pendant between her fingers. Ada, who herself had no new apprentice this year, smiled around the bunch encouragingly.

“I’ve just started Felicity on pruning, like I always do,” Miss Rosemont began after a silent group decision that she should start. “She’s learning, I suppose. But actually, we were talking on the way up, and—” she turned to Hecate hopefully, “we were all wondering about that poor Hallow girl. How is she?”

Hecate stared back, willing the other woman to back down, hoping Gwen would step in.

This was exactly why she had foregone the summer meetings since June. Just a bunch of nosy witches looking for a gossip, not focusing on their teaching as they should. Never helping before tragedy struck.

“Hecate?”

Ada. Ada wanted her to tell them, to talk about it.

“She’s lost her magic,” Hecate reported shortly. “How do you think she is?”

She asked this as a challenge, and it was one that no one took. Soft _clinks_ filled awkward air as half of the group reached for their teacups in diversion. Hecate glared around.

“Right,” Miss Bat continued gamely as some of the younger teacher eyed Hecate curiously, “well, I’ve begun with a rock-a-bye chant this year, and I have to say that Millicent—”

She was interrupted by the scraping of Hecate’s chair on the hearth as Hecate stood. The fire warmed her back, but her voice was ice.

“Clearly everyone’s started off their apprentices with tricks and sparkles. I’ll return when there is serious teaching to be discussed.”

And with that, she raised a hand and was gone.

* * *

 

Hecate had never met another witch, save one, who could transfer themselves like she could. For most, it was a very physical effort; they arrived panting, sometimes nauseous, and few could manage more than a few miles at most. It drained most witches, but for Hecate, the act of moving herself somewhere else was always a warm relief.

She landed, not in her flat as she usually would, but on the first-floor landing. She heard giggles from the closed door in front of her. It opened to her knock to reveal Mildred and Maud in their pajamas, with popcorn littering the floor.

“Sorry—” Maud began, almost before Hecate had even seen her.

“Well met,” Hecate interrupted. She looked severely between them, with her nose up to avoid even glancing at the mess. “It shall be an early morning tomorrow, girls. I should consider an early night as well, if I were you.”

This was something Hecate had struggled with, as a young potions-mistress: giving her apprentices room to grow up. It was not quite as hard as having to share space with someone again, even if they were in another flat, but it was quite difficult. It had been Ada, actually, who had pointed out that if she never let them learn to care for themselves, they would never know how. And thus, she had but to grit her teeth and make pointed comments.

“Yes, Miss Hardbroom.” Maud nearly threw a curtsy.

Mildred just grinned. “Don’t worry, HB,” she reassured her teacher, “I’ve had the floor-cleaning spell down for years now.”

Hecate almost smiled despite herself. 

“That would reassure me more if I did not know the unfortunate circumstances under which you learned that spell,” she informed Mildred.

“That _was_ a mess, wasn’t it?” Mildred laughed. “And then when Ethel fell into it—”

“I don’t think I find the memory quite as amusing as you do, Miss Hubble,” Hecate reminded her. “A pleasant evening to you both.”

For the second time that evening, she disappeared from the room.

* * *

 

Her own flat seemed miles away, even though she had only to descend the stairs to return to the cozy, probably now-partially-cleaned flat her apprentices shared. Where Maud and Mildred’s flat was hung with fairy lights, witchball posters, and Mildred’s artwork, Hecate’s walls were crowded with bookshelves full of tomes and instruments. They all looked as if they might, at any moment, tumble onto the overstuffed armchair and sofa that sat beneath before ending up in the expansive hearth that dominated the far right wall. She put the kettle on the creaky old stove, waved a hand to start the fire in the hearth, and passed through a gap in the bookcases to her bedroom.

A broad window looked out the back, over the wild ramble of the garden and down to the river before the wide sky pinpointed with stars stole all attention for itself. Hecate fell onto the window seat there, back straight as ever but with exhaustion in her bones.

Her life had become a terrible, ersatz sort of stumbling race. She moved faster and faster, looking for answers, but only made herself more frantic. And no matter what she did, she couldn’t see a way out, a way to make it _right_.

But she had felt like this before, and she had not given up yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may have noticed that the chapter count's gone up! I've decided to go for a greater number of shorter chapters with faster updates, as opposed to weekly long chapters. I'll try to post on Wednesdays and Sundays. Thanks for reading! Thoughts are always appreciated :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hecate receives news that the Council will be sending a consultant, and is unpleasantly surprised by who it is.

She woke to the whistling of the kettle, jolting herself with an involuntary grunt of pain from her slump against the bookshelf. Her muscles had knit together along with her thoughts in the few minutes she’d been asleep, creating knots that she knew she would feel sharply in the morning.

A soft whine sounded near her feet, and she reached down blindly in the dark until she felt wiry fur beneath her palm. With her other hand, she conjured a ball of light and hung it in the air to light her way.

“Tea, I think, Morgana?”

The wolfhound rose from her place in the corner and shambled into the kitchen with Hecate. She came nearly up to Hecate’s ribs, but she moved gently through the flat, accustomed to the placement of every piece of furniture. Hecate had been worried, once, that she would not inherit her mother’s ability to come and go from the flat to run and hunt as she pleased, but it seemed that that skill had been inherited along with her mother Niamh’s place as Hecate’s familiar. Hecate would always perversely enjoy the murmurs that Morgana could cause by appearing by Hecate’s side in public, but she enjoyed the company even more.

The shrieking of the kettle soon filled the small flat and shocked Hecate out of the thoughtful fugue into which she had fallen while waiting. When she turned it off, she noticed another, smaller noise underneath. She cast about for her mirror, and finally summoned it with a snap of her fingers.

“Good evening, Hecate,” Ada greeted her for the second time that night.

“Well met, Ada,” Hecate murmured. She propped the mirror against the cannister of tea and applied herself to brewing a proper cup of tea.

“Is everything quite alright?” Ada inquired gently.

Hecate glanced up at that. She opened her mouth to offer some meaningless platitude about being tired, but caught the look of soft, open concern on Ada’s face. The same expression that had graced it periodically ever since they had met, every time Hecate isolated herself.

“No,” Hecate admitted, swirling the teabag in her mug. “It’s not.”

Ada nodded.

“They’ve not found a way to restore Esmerelda’s powers, have they?” she ventured.

“No,” Hecate repeated. “And I have not been successful, either. In fact,” she chuckled mirthlessly, “I haven’t the faintest clue how to reverse it.

“She’s got no magic, Ada!” Hecate continued, gesturing with frustration. “None! There’s nothing to work with, that’s what the specialist said, nothing to augment or restore, nothing to nurse back to full strength. There’s just—nothing.” She stared into her mug, brooding. “I should have been there.”

“Hecate, it is not a personal failing on your part that you cannot see the future nor do the impossible, just as what happened when you were a child was not your fault,” Ada reminded her softly. “And I’m sure Esmerelda would tell you that, if you would go see her.”

“Perhaps,” Hecate admitted grudgingly.

“And maybe—” Ada started again.

“Not tonight, Ada,” Hecate interrupted tiredly. “I simply—not tonight.”

Ada nodded, then hesitated.

“You left quite early in the meeting. Before I shared the news I mentioned.”

“I know, and I apologize for my rudeness.”

“No, that’s not—” Ada searched for the words she wanted. “You left before I read the notice from the Magic Council.”

Hecate frowned.

“Notice of what?”

Ada sighed.

“I’m afraid you shan’t like it. I’ve sent it to your maglet.”

“Alright,” Hecate murmured, already looking to the next room for the enchanted tablet. “Why won’t I like it?”

Ada pursed her lips.

“I’ll let you read it yourself, dear,” she answered. “I shall wait here.”

Hecate mumbled her assent and crossed into the living room with long strides, intrigued and hesitant at the same time. Ada knew her quite well; if she said Hecate wouldn’t like it, she likely wouldn’t. At all.

The message was the first and only on her screen, and her heart bobbed uncomfortably as she read the preview that showed up: _“To all village teachers: Due to recent events, the Magic Council has decided to—”_

She opened the message and read on.

  _“—hire a magical education consultant_ _. This consultant will attend classes taught by all teachers, as well as observe teacher interactions with apprentices, in order to evaluate teachers on methodology, skill, and instructional content. They will provide the Council with a full report on all teachers and recommendations as to necessary changes in the village educational system._

_We rest assured that all of you will cooperate fully with the consultant and work with them to ensure that the Council receives a full and accurate picture of the educational landscape in the village, as well as ways in which it can be improved._

_Sincerely—”_

Hecate stomped back into the kitchen like thunder.

“Ada, this _will not stand_ ,” she began.

“I’m afraid it will, dear. Look at the signatures.”

Hecate swiped a finger down the screen and watched the names of the entire village leadership roll past.

“This is aimed at me,” Hecate hissed. “This is that Hallow woman’s doing, and I swear to the Goddess, Ada—”

“Hecate, put that maglet down before you crack it in half,” Ada advised her quietly. “And it’s not just you. Esmerelda’s accident may have precipitated this, but—”

“But what?” Hecate bit back. “The teachers here are hardly perfect, but I shouldn’t think that they seriously intend to run any of the rest of them out of town.”

“There has been no talk of that, and there shall be none,” Ada shot back. “No one is getting run out of town, especially not you. But there have been questions,” she informed Hecate. “Miss Bat has been losing her touch for years, falling asleep in lessons, and then the younger ones, well, Miss Meadowlark’s apprenticeship was in Familiar Sciences and now she’s teaching Herbalism, which she’s hardly qualified for. You’ve had your own complaints about the standards here for years. Who’s to say the consultant won’t simply recommend the changes you’ve always wanted?”

Hecate’s eyes flared.

“My own issues with the local teachers notwithstanding, the Council have _no right_ to infringe on an ancient practice of witching education at the local level in this way. And now some— _outsider_ —” she said this as if she considered it the worst insult she could imagine—“will dictate _how_ and _who_ we teach? Unacceptable!”

“There’s been no talk of dictating students or mandating methods,” Ada reminded her placatingly. “Shouldn’t we give this a chance?”

Hecate sighed heavily and stopped pacing to look at her oldest friend.

“You have always been far more optimistic than I, and I must admit that occasionally you have the right of it.”

Ada chuckled.

“But I cannot say that I am happy with this, this _power grab_ of the Council,” Hecate continued. “We have always been a people free of centralized guidance, strong for our self-sufficiency and flexibility. I cannot see how the institution of a strict bureaucracy can bode well for the future of witching in this village.”

Ada inclined her head in thoughtful assent.

“I must agree. We shall have to be watchful.”

“As ever our kind has had to be, Ada,” Hecate murmured, her eyes fixed on the fire dying out in the hearth. “And as we always shall be.”

* * *

A week later, the educational consultant hired by Those Too Far Away, Too Foolish, and Too Male to Possibly Know What’s Best for Our Community (as Hecate called them, which soon earned Dimity’s jocular mockery) arrived in the most conspicuous way possible. Right there, in the center of the town square, a bright circle of gold and white light appeared twenty feet in the air, pulsing gently. A crowd quickly gathered, Hecate among them, although she told herself that it was more to scoff at the consultant’s flashy tricks than curiosity at their arrival.

Mildred, who had been the one to drag both Maud and Hecate outside in the first place, stood openly staring in wonder.

“Miss Hubble, perhaps you might cease to grace us with your impression of a big-mouth bass,” Hecate intoned with the patience of a teacher who knew it was not the last time she would have to make such a request.

Mildred shut her mouth obligingly, but then opened it again, this time to talk. Instant regret filled Hecate to the brim, neatly blocking out any nerves she had about the consultant’s arrival.

“What d’you think he’ll be like? Will he come to the shop?”

Maud joined in, and that was when Hecate’s headache really set in.

“I hope he’s good, I’ve got so many suggestions—”

She quailed under Hecate’s glare, but hastened to correct her error.

“Not about you, Miss Hardbroom, just about some of the other teachers, and the—” she went on even in the face of Hecate’s increasingly disapproving expression, which really showed her spunk. “—the system in general,” she finished quietly.

Before Hecate could make an answer that she might later regret, when under slightly less stress, a figure appeared in the circle of light, to many gasps of amazement.

“Oh, hallo!” the pink-clad witch called gaily. “Just getting my bags, hang on—”

Her bags appeared then with a _pop_ , one in each hand, to many mutters of impressed approval. Hecate missed this, however, as she was staring at the witch with growing horror.

“HB, is something wrong?” Mildred asked with concern. “Only, you look like you’re having a heart attack.”

Hecate was, in fact, having some sort of attack, but not of the heart. In that moment, the only thing that registered was that the educational consultant was now descending through the air as if down stairs, greeting the villagers with gracious familiarity.

“Pippa Pentangle,” she announced, after which Hecate took in her first shuddering breath in several long moments. “I’m the educational consultant the Council’s sent.”

The moment before Miss Pentangle’s eyes finished their sweep of the crowd, Hecate twisted her hand sharply and disappeared into thin air.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hecate bites the bullet and sets a meeting with Pippa; in the meantime, she focuses on her students and apprentices.

When she reappeared, she was in the familiar environs of her sitting room. Morgana was nowhere to be found, but that was normal; she often took herself on long walks during the day. What was not normal was the enormous pace at which Hecate’s heart was racing, nor the damp sweat that had grown on her back.

_Pippa Pentangle, here._

It wasn’t the first time; Hecate would never forget that day.

She’d only had the shop for a few months, inherited from a grandmother she hardly remembered. She hadn’t even known her grandmother had passed when she’d arrived, actually, but witch’s law provided for the passing of familial property through the maternal line. Not that there’d been any other relatives there to contest the transfer. In the end, it had been a small village where popular opinion ruled, and the general opinion was that the potions shop had as well stay in the Hardbroom family for a twenty-third generation.

She hadn’t adjusted quickly or well to the prying kindness of her grandmother’s old friends, nor to the painful curiosity of the younger residents. She had, however, struck up a tentative friendship with the daughter of the local tea shop owner. It was Ada, that day, who had brought Pippa to her door.

Hecate had been in the back garden, picking herbs, when the bell at the front of the shop tinkled. She’d hurried in, only to find Ada assuring a pink-clad young witch that Hecate would be happy to see an old schoolmate.

Tears had filled Pippa’s eyes, even as Hecate’s remained dry as stone, her heart constricting in her chest. _Perhaps—_

“I thought you’d _died_.”

Ada had excused herself to Hecate’s flat, muttering something about putting the kettle on.

“You left without a _word_ , Hecate, you cowardly excuse for a witch—"

Pippa’s recriminations had lasted the better part of the next ten minutes; she barely seemed to draw breath. Through it all, every accusation, every insinuation, Hecate stood as still as a statue, still wearing her gardening gloves.

“I suppose you’re quite done?” she’d asked quietly.

Pippa had angrily wiped tears from her eyes and nodded. Before she’d even finished, Hecate was gone. She didn’t come back from the woods for nearly a fortnight; when she returned, Ada told her that Pippa had kept a room at the pub for a week before giving up. Ada had had to dissuade her from camping out in Hecate’s flat.

Hecate had thanked Ada for her concern. They’d never mentioned it again; not even the next morning, when Ada had shown up unexpectedly to help Hecate clean up the flat she’d left in shambles, every single belonging either smashed or on the floor.

It had been being blamed that had hurt the most. Years later, she could recognize that as a young woman, she’d been blamed for so much, by her father, her teachers—to have Pippa do the same, and for an act of self-preservation and _protection_ was too much for her to bear. The weeks in the woods had been spent savagely yanking her mind back to basic tasks of the craft, back to gathering potion supplies and connecting to the natural world rather than to the pain and anger she held inside.

The havoc she’d wreaked on her flat when she’d returned to find the pain still there had been a lapse, but she couldn’t afford that now, not after years of work. Destruction would benefit no one; nor would old grudges. No, Hecate decided, the thing to do was simply to weather Pippa’s presence in the village. And oppose her every action, of course. Nothing personal; simply the best course of action.

* * *

 

Of course, Pippa set about making herself as ubiquitous and annoying as Hecate remembered her. Just like at school, it seemed as if not even those who had a reason to dislike her could quite bring themselves to the emotion. She’d gone to Miss Rosemont’s lessons, Hecate heard, and soon had the young woman instructing her pupils to practice meditation among their plants to create a better emotional bond. Imagine! Even Dimity was susceptible—not three days after Pippa arrived, Hecate overheard her in the post office, talking about deconstructing the hierarchical teacher-apprentice relationship.

Avoiding Pippa—Miss Pentangle, as Hecate had had to remind herself more than once—was purely a survival strategy. Let her hone in on lesser teachers, if she were there to pick and snipe and insinuate her blasted modern methods. Keeping her head down was simply the best course of action available. It had nothing to do with wishing to dodge the woman herself.

Ada, of course, was having none of it. She never did.

“Hecate, this has gone on quite long enough,” she advised Hecate in strict tones one dreary morning the week after Pippa arrived. “I won’t have you shutting yourself away simply because you had an argument twenty-five years ago.”

“That’s not—I’m not—” Hecate found herself uncharacteristically at a loss. When Ada put it like _that_ , she really did sound unreasonable.

“It is, and you are,” Ada affirmed. “Now, what are you going to do about it?”

She didn’t exactly stand over Hecate as she composed a civil note to Pippa, but it was a close thing.

_Miss Pentangle,_

_I have been told that you are scheduling meetings with all village instructors to assess their teaching methods. I shall expect you on Friday at one pm._

Much as she had not been able to bring herself to address the note with ‘ _Dear_ ’, she could not put pen to paper to spell out the word ‘ _Sincerely.’_ Instead, she settled for signing her name, sealing the letter, and sending it off with Morgana the next morning.

Friday was only a few days away, and she had plenty to do in the meantime. That was one explanation for how fast the time passed; the other was that she dreaded the encounter. Would Pippa remain professional, or try to discuss their long-ago friendship? And which would be worse?

The thing to do, she decided, was to focus on her apprentices and her other students. Her teaching methods were in question; what better way to show up the Council, then, but to make sure her students excelled?

* * *

 

“More potions classifications?” Mildred asked, wrinkling her nose.

Hecate paused and held a finger down to mark her place in the instructions she’d been reviewing at her work bench.

“You are a potioneer’s apprentice, Miss Hubble. Surely you expected to learn about many types of potion?”

“I just thought they’d run out of types eventually,” Mildred shrugged. “Can’t everything be classified under a few broad categories, anyway?”

“They can, and they are,” Hecate answered, “but we have moved down the classification system to more specific labels. Understanding that system is key to understanding how different potions are related, and thus, how they may interact or be modified for other uses.”

“Because we’re producing knowledge now, not just receiving it.” Mildred’s repeated the words that Hecate had intoned to both her apprentices several times over the past few weeks.

Hecate hid her smile in her book. When she recovered, she turned to Maud.

“In the spirit of Miss Hubble’s comments, do you find the placement of sleeping potions with mind-altering potions rather than healing ones odd, Miss Spellbody?”

“N—No—” Maud began nervously. She glanced at Mildred and gained courage, a motion which Hecate noticed. “Because they act on the paths of the mind, not through the body.”

“Is the brain not a part of the body?” Hecate pursued the thought, perhaps further than was strictly necessary. She had hoped that Maud would lose her shyness sooner, and could think of no other way to draw her pupil out than to ask her more and more questions.

“That’s all part of the classification, though, isn’t it?” Mildred interjected, saving a rather panicky Maud. She spoke mostly to Maud, as if this was a topic they’d discussed before. “Higher up, under the broader classifications, brain and body go in the same box. But then they split, because potions intended to affect brain functions, like telling us to sleep, work differently than those that affect other parts of the body. Right, Maud?”

“Right.” Maud picked up the thought. “It’s all connected, but sleeping potions are more similar to other potions that affect brain function.”

“Quite.” Hecate nodded. “Although you should always remember that the mind and the body are linked, both physically and through your magic. Potions that affect one, like sleeping potions, will also affect the other; excessive sleep may result in loss of strength, poor circulation, and the like. Five hundred words on the topic, due Monday.”

“Right,” Mildred nodded, bending to scribble the assignment in her notebook.

When Hecate glanced at Maud, she ducked her head. What _was_ getting into that girl?

* * *

 

Friday arrived much sooner than Hecate would have liked, though she also told herself that once everything was over, she’d be glad to have the weekend to herself. Or as ‘to herself’ as she could have anything, with Mildred Hubble living the next floor down to her.

Her morning class was chaos; she’d put the girls to preparing a calming draught, which she’d thought simple enough. It was the youngest bunch, a simple potion, and she could have used some calming.

Of course, it all went horrifically wrong. Cassidy Bronsdean put in mugwort instead of pennyroyal (how she’d gotten _those_ mixed up, Hecate prayed she never knew), and of course it was the last one Hecate tried. She should have seen the off-color tone and the shimmer across the surface of the potion, but her head ached from the mis-proportioned potions she’d already tested and she had half her attention focused on _not_ obsessing over her meeting with Pippa that afternoon.

By the time she tasted the bitter aftertaste, it was too late. She reached for the counter to steady herself, missed, and nearly fell over.

“Maud, an antidote for a—a—”

Her eyelids fluttered, and she could not focus.

“Here, HB,” she heard, and felt a vial being thrust into her hands. She took it blindly, and hoped for success.

When she was ready to open her eyes, it was to a crowd of curious ten-year-olds and the mixed expressions of her apprentices. Mildred looked pleased; Maud looked sick.

“Are you alright, HB?” Mildred asked, but Hecate brushed the question off and attempted to stand straight.

“Can anyone tell me what went wrong?” she asked her students, trying to hide how hard she was leaning on the counter.

No one volunteered an answer; Cassidy’s lower lip trembled.

“Mugwort,” Mildred supplied after a long pause. “Makes it act more like a sleeping potion, it calms you down so much. That’s what gives it that silvery look, see?” She pointed at Cassidy’s cauldron, and several girls crowded closer.  

Hecate seemed to recall that Mildred had made a similar mistake, once, as she watched the teenager explaining how to notice the error to her class. 

After they’d had a look, Hecate whirled a hand at the offending cauldron and cleared it out. “Miss Bronsdean, I shall expect a thorough exploration of the purpose of each and every ingredient of a proper calming potion. Mildred—”

Her apprentice looked up from where she was helping another student spell away spatters of potion.

“Yes, Miss Hardbroom?”

A feeling of pride swept over her. Even if her first-years couldn’t brew that blasted potion correctly, at least she hadn’t failed Mildred quite yet.

“Well done.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hecate has her meeting with Pippa; she receives several pieces of bad news.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all your comments, they've made working on this so much fun! I hope you enjoy this chapter :)

After the class cleared out, Hecate found herself flagging. Although the antidote Mildred had selected had been the correct one, Hecate was still feeling the effects of the sleeping draught. To counteract it, she had had to take two doses of the wide-awake potion she kept on hand for long nights with finicky potions.

Two doses may have been overdoing it, though, as she was jumpy as a frog by the time Pippa arrived.

“Miss Pentangle’s here to see you, Miss,” Maud announced unnecessarily when the bell over the shop door tinkled.

Hecate had already noticed. She took in Pippa’s smart pink skirt, with a professional-yet-flirty button-up tucked in, all worn under a stylish cloak to hold off the rain. In her usual black, complete with the long apron she wore to teach and had forgotten to take off, Hecate felt downright frumpy.

“Well met,” she greeted her.

“Well met,” Pippa returned. “Shall we?” she asked, when Hecate still stood frozen.

“Of course.” Hecate cleared her throat. “This way.”

She led Pippa up the stairs to the first floor, which was entirely composed of a potions workroom set up for her students and a washroom. Once there, she contemplated the wisdom of brewing them tea in one of the cauldrons already there, but thought better of it. With a careful thought and a twist of her fingers, she set the kettle on in her flat two floors above.

“To what do I owe the visit?” Hecate asked, somewhat awkwardly. She’d habitually moved to stand behind her desk, leaving Pippa to wander through the classroom at will. Hecate conjured a chair across from her own and sat, hoping that Pippa got the message.

She did, and sat with a smile.

“You’re the one that’s invited me, Hecate.”

“I merely wished to request a meeting at a time that suited both of us, rather than having to rearrange my schedule later. I’m quite busy.”

“Well, I’m sure you’ve heard from the other teachers, I’m just here to discuss your methods and get a feel for how you do things. Your teaching philosophy, if you like.”

“I teach, Miss Pentangle. I’m sure I don’t know what else you could want to hear.”

“How do you start your classes?”

“Sometimes I say ‘good morning,’” Hecate confided acidly.

“And then?” Pippa’s polite smile remained, but it was certainly more strained.

“I _teach_.”

Pippa pursed her lips in annoyance.

“Look, Hecate, you asked me here. I’m doing my job. I understand that you don’t want to be friends, you’ve made that quite clear. But perhaps some common courtesy wouldn’t go amiss?” she suggested.

Hecate spread her hands on the desk.

“I’m being perfectly civil.”

“It’s clearly personal—”

Hecate cut in sharply.

“There’s nothing personal about it. This is how I would treat any witch who entered my village with the express purpose of driving me out.” She recited this calmly, even though the wide-awake potion was beginning to give her a pressure headache. At least, she blamed the potion.

Pippa sat up straighter.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Hecate enunciated clearly, carefully, and without emotion.

“I mean that the grudge you bear me is no excuse for being Ursula Hallow’s lackey.”

Pippa stood, so Hecate did too.

“I don’t know what’s happening here, or what you think I’ve come for,” Pippa started hotly. “But allow me to set the record straight: you rejected my friendship, vehemently and more than once, twenty-five years ago. I moved on a long time ago.”

She took a deep breath before continuing. Hecate was simply impressed that there was more.

“I hadn’t even thought of you for years, until I was asked to consult and vaguely remembered the name of the town I’d once stayed in, miserably, for a week waiting for you to grow up and come in from the woods, which you never did.” Her voice had grown exasperated, and it cut at Hecate like a knife. “So this has nothing to do with you, Hecate. I’m here to ensure that your students get the best possible education they can, under the circumstances. And given how immature and self-centered their teacher is, I can’t imagine that it’s very good,” she finished with a finality that Hecate instantly loathed.

How _dare_ she call Hecate selfish, after what she’d done.

Hecate mustered a sarcastic laugh.

“ _You_ call _me_ self-centered?” She snapped her fingers, and several items from her kitchen appeared on the desk in front of her with loud clanks. “There’s a pot _and_ a kettle right here, Pippa, if you’d like to call either of them black while you’re at it.” She leaned over the desk, close enough to Pippa to emphasize her greater height. “And you know nothing about me. _Nothing_.”

Pippa opened her mouth to retort, but at the same moment, the door to the classroom opened and hit the wall with a bang. Mildred skidded into the room already talking.

“Miss Hardbroom, Gilly Heddrick was practicing her wart removal potion at home and now her finger’s gone all— sorry.” She stopped and stood awkwardly, looking back and forth between Hecate and Pippa, who were, after all, standing inches apart over a desk in a large classroom with plenty of space.

Hecate made to turn away, but Pippa beat her to it.

“Well, Hecate, I’d hate to get in the way of your _teaching_.” She breezed over to the door, then turned to deliver a parting shot. “Perhaps we can speak again before I leave, if you’re feeling more reasonable.”

She had disappeared before Hecate could come up with anything to say through the pain building in her temples.

_Damn that potion._

* * *

 

When Hecate finally closed the shop and released Mildred and Maud for the night, all she wanted was to curl up with Morgana and a hot cup of tea to nurse away the tiredness that had sunk into her skull and found a home behind her eyes. It seemed, however, that that was not to be.

She’d received several pieces of mail from Enid Nightshade’s delivery. In her haste to cut off Enid, Maud, and Mildred’s gossiping before it started, she’d sent the mail upstairs and forgotten about it. When she found it on the dining table, however, she noticed that she’d overlooked an important-looking letter.

_Dear Miss Hardbroom:_

_We have received several complaints as to the quality of your potions. As it is our duty to regulate the quality of commercially-sold witchcraft in the –shire area, we are obliged to inform you that your shop, Hardbroom’s Apothecary, is now under official review. We will conduct an anonymous inspection in the next few weeks. A final determination will be made at a later date; you will be informed by post. At the request of several parents, a supply witch has been found to cover your classes._ _We hope that you will cooperate fully throughout this process._

_Yours in the Goddess’ Gifts,_

The letter ended with the flourishing signatures of all the Council members, Ursula Hallow’s sat smugly in the middle. Hecate crumpled the letter and thrust it into the fire, standing there watching until it burned to ash.

Long practice in managing both her magic and her emotions simultaneously forced her to breathe deeply, consistently, grounding herself in the familiar smells of her flat and the comforting feeling of Morgana’s fur under her hand. She’d almost calmed down enough to sleep when a tentative knock sounded at her door. At that time of night, there were really only two possibilities.

“Come in, Miss Spellbody,” she guessed, waving a hand to open the door. Maud peeked around the door and stepped carefully inside. She looked spooked, but then, that was hardly a new phenomenon.

“Good evening, Miss Hardbroom.”

Hecate sighed and gestured to the armchair across from her own. Maud stepped forward, but seemed reluctant to commit to sitting.

“Come in, Miss Spellbody. Would you like tea?”

“No, Miss, I—” Maud wrung her hands.

She might have taken all night, if Hecate had let her.

“Tonight, Miss Spellbody.”

“I’m taking an apprenticeship with Miss Cackle!” Maud blurted.

Hecate paused, her eyes widening.

“Maud, you’re an excellent pupil. I hope I haven’t given you the impression that I—”

“It’s not your fault,” Maud interrupted, not seeming to realize that she’d interrupted until afterwards. “I’m sorry, Miss Hardbroom, I just meant—” she stopped, and Hecate motioned to her to continue. “You’ve been wonderful, Miss Hardbroom.”

 _If terrifying, clearly,_ Hecate added in her head.

“But I was talking to Miss Pentangle, and she said that I should do the thing that I’m most interested in, not just the hardest thing. Or the thing with the most prestigious teacher,” she added, not quite looking Hecate in the eye. “And I love potions, I really do, but—”

“But tea and cakes hold your interest more than the exacting science of the potion craft,” Hecate finished crisply.

“I—I guess so, Miss Hardbroom,” Maud answered.

Hecate felt fury building within her, and she no longer had the energy to redirect it.

“You guess, or you know?” She loomed over Maud, something in her recoiling at the frightened expression she’d raised on her pupil’s face. Behind her, something on the bookcase cracked. “This is your future, Miss Spellbody. Perhaps you should attain some level of certainty before wasting either mine or Miss Cackle’s time with your wishy-washy approach to learning.”

It was Morgana that snapped her out of it; the hound sidled up to Maud as Hecate ranted, leaning into her side as if to offer comfort. Comfort from _Hecate._ She turned her back on Maud, the better to hide the wetness that had sprung into her eyes. She was so _tired._

“I’ll have my things out of the apartment tomorrow. Millie’s going to help,” Maud offered quietly.

Hecate heard the door click as she left quietly. The thing that had cracked was her second-best scrying bowl; she cradled it in her hands as if it were a child. She sank onto the couch, sniffed, and stared into the dying fire, with Morgana beside her, long into the night.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hecate talks to Ada and decides to take advantage of her unexpectedly free schedule.

Maud did remove her things the next morning, with Mildred’s help. Hecate contemplated enforcing her claim on Mildred’s time, even on Saturday mornings, but Mildred’s obstinate silence every time she passed Hecate put paid to that thought. She wasn’t quite up to being outright disrespected by a second apprentice in as many days.

She did go to see Ada, of course. The grim look with which her oldest friend in the village greeted her made her damn, not for the first time that morning, Ursula Hallow and Pippa and the way they’d twisted Hecate’s life around.

Though her first instinct was to accuse, one look at Ada’s face warned Hecate off that notion.

“I wish you’d told me,” was the greeting she settled for. “I should have been consulted.”

“I agree,” Ada told her. She gestured Hecate into her familiar sitting room, with was decorated with just the degree of coziness that Hecate always associated with Ada. “But she’s frightened of you, Hecate. I know it has no basis,” she added before Hecate could object, “but it’s clear she can’t learn like that. You can’t say that she was a particularly good apprentice for you. And now that she’s had time to think through her decision, I think kitchen and community magic will be a more suitable field for her.”

Hecate thought back, as she had since Maud had announced her intentions. In hindsight, when they’d been given a choice, Maud and Mildred had always arranged it so that Maud was farther away from Hecate, minding the shop or working in the back while Hecate taught. And when she’d quizzed them, Mildred had always talked more. She’d chalked it up to nerves that would go away, but then, it had been long enough now and they simply hadn’t. And even if Maud was smart enough to succeed at potions, Hecate had to admit that she didn’t have the zeal for it that marked a true devotee.

“I suppose you’re right,” Hecate admitted with a sigh. She took the cup of tea Ada offered gratefully. “I don’t know why she’s so frightened,” she complained after taking a sip. “Usually the younger ones are intimidated, but I’ve taught Maud for years. What could possibly have—”

Ada looked away carefully, and Hecate stopped. Something had changed, something had happened—

“You can’t—she thinks--?” She found it a difficult suspicion to voice, but it was there, hard and cold in her throat. “She wasn’t that frightened before the summer. Before Esmerelda—”

Ada’s eyes were filled with sympathy, and Hecate couldn’t continue.

“Hecate, rumors are not fact, and certainly not to those who know you best. Maud is a suggestible young girl. I’m certain that, given some time to think and a chance to consider, she would realize that you would never do such a thing.”

“Suggestible,” Hecate huffed. “Suggested by that Hallow woman, and reinforced by Pippa, I have no doubt. Maud mentioned that Pippa had suggested she switch apprenticeships. I’m sure she couldn’t _wait_ to take away one of my students,” she finished bitterly.

Ada put her tea down.

“I’ve spoken with Miss Pentangle, and I don’t believe for a moment that she’s here to fulfill some grudge she’s held for years. Might you be—”

She turned the end of the trailed-off sentence up into a tentative question.

Hecate stared.

“Might I be _what_ , Ada?”

“You were quite upset the last time you saw her. And you never were the same.”

“You hardly knew me then,” Hecate answered shortly. “And I was still settling into my role, both with the shop and as a teacher. I took my first apprentice that fall.”

“I remember,” Ada assured her. “But I was speaking on a personal level. When you came here, you were—”

“I was what?” Hecate interrupted, her eyes flashing. “A silly, damaged girl with no sense?”

Ada laid a calming hand over Hecate’s.

“You had been through so much, but as I recall, you talked of returning to the place where you grew up. Of reconnecting with people you’d known at school. You never planned to stay here forever.”

“Are you implying that you would have liked me to leave?” Hecate asked fiercely, staring resolutely into the corner.

Ada ignored her.

“But after Pippa—”

“Miss Pentangle has nothing to do with the matter,” Hecate interrupted again, rising from her seat with a lurch that nearly upset the teapot into Ada’s lap. “If you’ll excuse me.”

* * *

 

The weather had matched Hecate’s mood for nearly a week, and it only intensified over the weekend; by dawn on Monday, the sky was a solid gunmetal grey, and the rain was falling in sheets instead of drops.

It did make it slightly more satisfying when Pippa dashed into the shop, soaking wet and panting, but not as satisfying as never seeing her again would have been. Hecate’s nostrils flared as Pippa cast a drying spell, but she said nothing.

“Well met, Hecate,” Pippa offered with a tentative smile. Odd. “I hope you’re not angry?” Odder still. Of course Hecate was angry.

“I’m quite sure I don’t know to what you’re referring,” Hecate replied coolly as she continued to jot down notes on the batch of potions she’d bottled that morning. They should age for six—no, _eight_ months, Goddess help her if she couldn’t focus—

“So you’re alright with me taking over your classes?” Pippa asked hopefully. “Only it’s just for a short time, I’ve been assured it’s a formality, and I’m quite excited, actually, to get a chance to really dig in with these girls—”

Hecate’s scorching expression put paid to Pippa’s confusing babble.

“ _You’re_ the supply witch they’ve found,” Hecate said slowly. Well, that was another thing she could be angry about, with no trouble at all.

“Yes. I’m already here, and I’ve got the experience.”

“In potions?” Hecate laughed.

Pippa frowned.

“You know I was top of our class with Ms. Bellweather, and if you’d bothered to stick around, you’d know that I took top honors in it at uni too,” she informed Hecate with a frosty bite in her voice. “I’ve specialized in education since, but I keep up with new methods in both potions _and_ herbalism. I know you think I’m silly and frivolous, but you might at least recognize that I _do_ have excellent credentials.”

Hecate inclined her head grudgingly, if only because surrender seemed the fastest path through this.

“I shall be lodging my protest with the Council,” she informed Pippa severely.

Pippa waved a hand.

“Noted.” She stepped forward until the counter was the only thing between her and Hecate.

“A formality?” Hecate asked, casually. If she didn’t know better, she’d think that Pippa looked almost—sympathetic. Well. Hecate didn’t need her pity, or her guilt, if that was what it was.

“Yes,” Pippa affirmed, “and you should know I’ve got full faith in you. The rumors about your patents are just that, rumors. Spread by jealous rivals, I’m sure,” she winked, a little forced in her jocularity.

Hecate stiffened. The letter had not said anything about her patents, just her potions, but she certainly was not going to ask Pippa of all people to clarify the Council’s charges against her. It would feel too much like a confession of weakness.

“I thought we could work together, actually. Make sure the transition isn’t too jarring for the girls,” Pippa continued.

Hecate paused in her writing.

“No, I don’t think we’ll be doing that.”

“I’m sorry?” Pippa’s eyes widened in confusion.

“My apprentice and I will be using our unexpected free time to collect some ingredients I’m running low on,” Hecate told Pippa calmly, with great enjoyment and as if she had _not_ thought of the idea at that very moment. “I’m sure you’ll manage. Isn’t inserting your own ideas where they’re not wanted the foundation of your career?”

Hecate often enjoyed disappearing before others could take the last word away from her. It was even better, she decided, when Pippa’s shocked expression was the last thing she saw before she left.

* * *

 

Hecate had gone to Whalen Wood to gather ingredients for years, but she hadn’t been since the spring. When she sent her apprentices and older students out by themselves, she always provided them a list of the supplies they’d need to stay out for several days, even if only an overnight trip was planned. When she went, though, she carried only the things she needed immediately; the rest, she could conjure or call at will. In a pinch, Morgana could always be enlisted to fetch and carry, although sometimes she took her time with it.

She had another task in mind as well, something she’d been planning to do for a while. Just after Esmerelda’s accident, she’d gone out to the woods, but found no trace of whatever had taken her magic. Another pass, though, now that the season had changed… she’d wanted to do it earlier, but then, well, she’d been distracted the last few weeks. Though it wasn’t the way she would have wanted, Hecate was somewhat relieved to have the chance to look around again.

Mildred took longer than Hecate would have liked to get ready; by the time she knocked on Hecate’s door, Hecate had heard her students trooping up the steps and knew that Pippa would have started her lesson. No doubt she’d begun by going around the class and asking for names and favorite colors, Hecate thought sourly, instead of establishing where they were in their lessons.

“Ready to go, HB?” Mildred asked as she bounced on her toes. She had seemed angry in the morning, but seemed to have sorted herself out once she and Enid had helped Maud settle in at Ada's. Hecate could only thank the Goddess that a row with her apprentice hadn't been added to the list of her problems that week. 

Hecate looked her up and down. She had on thick rubber galoshes and a raincoat, and carried a rucksack that seemed to weigh nearly as much as her.

“Have you left anything behind, Miss Hubble?” she asked sarcastically.

Mildred grinned.

“Mum says to always be prepared, because you never know what you’ll need.”

Hecate thought about Julie Hubble, who had shown up in the village nearly eight years ago adamant that her daughter was a witch, that she’d found a witching village, and that her daughter deserved a magical education. The motto dovetailed with Hecate’s memories of her tenacity.

“Quite,” Hecate said. “However, perhaps you might remind me to test the limits of your summoning abilities. You’ll find that carrying everything grows tiring quickly.”

“I remember,” Mildred assured her. “When we came in the summer, Esmerelda—”

Hecate did not miss the sudden stop to Mildred’s tale, but chose not to engage with it. Plenty of time to talk when they’d gotten to the woods. With a deep breath, she put her hand on Mildred’s shoulder, closed her eyes, pictured the spot where she wanted to land, and allowed the familiar pulling sensation to take hold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I know this was a bit of a filler chapter, but the next one will be much busier!


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hecate and Mildred encounter something dangerous in the woods.

The rain had abated somewhat, but Hecate still had to cast an invisible umbrella above herself, then a drying spell right after. She squinted at Mildred, who was looking about happily as raindrops bounced off her hat.

“You remember the umbrella spell?” she prompted her apprentice.

“I’ve waterproofed everything I’ve got on,” Mildred informed her. “I’d rather leave it, for now.”

“Very well,” Hecate allowed, displeased but unwilling to coddle Mildred by ordering her about on such a trivial matter.

“HB, if I don’t let the rain fall on me, how will I know my waterproofing worked?” Mildred inquired with a grin that said she knew what Hecate was thinking.

Hecate rolled her eyes and turned away. Morgana, although Hecate had not transferred her, loped out of the nearest stand of trees and joined Hecate on the path, tongue sticking out and tail wagging in perfect, soaking happiness.

She’d transferred them to the point at which she started all her plant-gathering trips: the old cottage in a small glade, just past the bend in the stream if one were to approach from the village. The cottage was beginning to fade into the forest floor, the roof a little closer to falling in every time Hecate saw it. Her mother’s cottage.

She didn’t remember living there, though she wished she did. She could imagine what it must have been like, she’d seen pictures; but any images conjured in her head were mere fiction inspired by clues she’d pieced together over the years.

“Miss Bat mentioned a chanter who lived out in these woods,” Mildred mused, stepping up next to Hecate to look at the cottage. “I never thought about it when we came here before, but, d’you think this belonged to her?”

“Yes,” Hecate answered, feeling very distant and then close again all of a sudden. The rain pattered softly on the leaves of the trees above them as she anchored her hand in Morgana’s wiry fur. “I believe the last owner was a chanter of some note.”

“What do you think happened to her?”

Hecate started to walk then, hopeful that movement and a task would distract Mildred. She sidestepped a log that had fallen over the path handily, and listened to Mildred crashing along behind her.

“I thought we’d head in a northerly direction and look for wormwart first. Have you the list I gave you?”

Mildred gave her an odd look, but answered gamely.

“Yes, it’s right—”

It took Mildred nearly ten minutes to twist herself round, undo the straps on her bag, realize that nothing _inside_ was waterproofed, cast the umbrella spell with Hecate looking on smugly, and dig through all her belongings to find the list. By the time she’d done so, Hecate was satisfied that she’d quite forgotten her unanswered question.

And so they began to walk, with Morgana ranging ahead, only occasionally coming back to show Hecate a particularly interesting stick or to nudge Mildred.

They could have split up; Mildred had been plant-gathering for Hecate twice before, with the other girls in her years five and six classes. Hecate always transferred them to this spot to start, the place where all the paths met, so she knew the area and what to look for. But the last time she’d been in the woods, that was when—

“We camped over there, when we came with Esmerelda,” Mildred noted soberly, pointing out a small clearing about twenty minutes’ walk from the cottage.

Hecate recognized the spot too; she had covered all of this part of the forest, after they’d all come back, looking for some sign of what had happened. The summer woods had only hummed with innocent plant, insect, and animal activity, smugly silent on the matter of Esmerelda’s accident.

She had to believe it was an accident.

Mildred looked around, squinting at various tree branches and not at the ground where the wormwart would be.

“Are you looking for something in particular, or have you forgotten that wormwart is not a climbing plant?” Hecate asked rather more acerbically than Mildred really deserved.

“Well—” Mildred hesitated. “It’s just, I’ve been out here before.”

“Yes, I’ve sent you here several times,” Hecate responded, rolling her eyes.

Mildred shook her head.

“No, when we were younger,” she said slowly. “There used to be a crooked branch that we used to mark the spot. Maybe that one?” She shut one eye and lined up her gaze with an old oak towering over the other trees. “No, not that one. It’s hard to tell, the angle was different before I got taller.”

“Miss Hubble, what _are_ you talking about?” Hecate asked in wonderment. Trust Mildred Hubble to get distracted within the first five minutes!

“Well, when we were younger—I’m not telling you who, exactly, because you won’t approve at all—some of the girls used to practice potions and spells and things out here. There was a spot we used.” Mildred pointed at the ground near Hecate’s feet. “There, HB, watch out for that snake-vine. Oh, wormwart!” She darted down with a trowel and dug the specimen out carefully.

“That was very dangerous of you,” Hecate muttered as she sidestepped the vine. “Who did this ill-thought-out group consist of?

Mildred grinned up at her.

“Not telling, they’d kill me. In hindsight, not the cleverest thing we ever did. But at least no one got hurt.”

Hecate’s eyes flared wide.

“That is hardly the attitude of a careful, exacting, _mature_ potions mistress,” she began. “The hazards from entering the woods at night _alone_ —”

It was nice, actually, to have a good long rant, and Mildred seemed almost to be enjoying it. Hecate reeled off all the dangers she could think of: accidental bewitchment, spells with unintended consequences, poorly-disposed-of potions and spell materials, physical harm when they were too far from the village to run for help quickly, and more. It was almost made more fun when Mildred argued.

“We made sure we could get messages back to someone’s mum if we really needed help, we did think of that—” and “We learned the counterspells first, honestly HB, you’ve got no faith in us at all—”

The one thought that Hecate kept to herself, however, was that there was a slim possibility that a mix of discarded potions, spell paraphernalia, and the like _could_ have, _might_ have somehow mixed unexpectedly and lingered long enough to catch a young witch unawares. Might, indeed, have had the effect of removing all magic from her body. But that was a possibility too terrible to throw at her apprentice simply to win a rhetorical point, although she did find herself emphasizing how many adverse effects their wayward practices could have had.

They found a patch of wormwart, and by the time they’d exhausted the subject of Mildred and her cohort’s wayward study methods, they’d also collected more than enough of the plant. Once Hecate had transferred the specimens back to her workroom, they switched over to looking for wattleberries. Though Hecate kept a weather eye out, she saw nothing out of the ordinary.

They’d been at it for a long while, so long that they’d wandered away from each other as they bent and picked their way through the forest. Hecate hit her stride after ten minutes or so and lost herself in the process; she searched for the spiky leaves and muted blue berries of the wattleberry plant, while also scanning relentlessly for any sign of something out of place.

It was difficult to know what to look for, exactly: a misshapen tree branch, perhaps, or a patch of discolored foliage? A puddle where none should be, or something blooming out of season? A feeling at the back of her neck, buzzing, warning—

Morgana yelped, and Hecate whipped around just in time to see Mildred reaching for something that Hecate had never seen before.

“Mildred!”

Hecate had transferred in an instant, but when she appeared again, she realized her mistake. The plant was growing in a patch, and when Hecate knocked Mildred away, both of them fell directly onto the plant that was just not _right_.  

The instant her hands hit the ground, Hecate knew she’d made a grave error. A burning sensation like that from extreme cold started in her fingertips and spread up her hand, chased by a dead feeling. She tried to rise, but the damage was done; the feeling spread across her neck, she could feel the sensation in her throat, in her head. And she could not reach her magic—

The burning sensation spread to her face where it touched the ground, and Hecate felt her consciousness ebbing away along with her magic.

“HB—” Mildred’s voice was weak, but there, and Hecate galvanized herself. She’d be _damned_ if another of her students –

She gathered all her energy and dragged herself in a direction that she hoped was not further into the patch. Relief came instantly as her hands met the comforting tangle of normal plants and good, firm earth.

“Mildred,” Hecate gasped. Her vision began to come back, and she could hear Mildred coughing and moving. She looked, and saw that Morgana had helped Mildred drag herself away from the offending plant. “Good girl,” she whispered, and let her eyes fall closed. “Good girl.” She wasn’t sure which she was speaking to.

The effects had been stopped in their progress, but they had not reversed. Hecate considered trying to transfer herself, but thought that she wasn’t supposed to. She couldn’t remember why—A delay could cost them both, she knew; the terror of what that might mean seized the foggy parts of her brain that had not yet shut down.

Morgana whined at her side.

“Go,” Hecate mumbled, waving a hand at the dog. “Go. Ada.”  

Later (minutes? An hour?), she heard crashing as though someone or something was moving through the woods in a hurry. She’d shut her eyes, but managed to open them again in time to see two blurs approaching.

“There,” someone panted. “They’re there. I can’t transfer them, I haven’t the power, but that spell you used when you arrived—”

“Yes, it shouldn’t harm them at all,” a soothing voice reassured her. Hecate shut her eyes again; she felt safer, somehow. Maybe when she woke up she could worry again. “You’re going to be fine, Hecate,” the voice told her in a hush as she finally lost consciousness.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hecate wakes up after her and Mildred's accident in the woods.

The first time Hecate’s eyes fluttered open, she saw a vague pink figure and heard Morgana’s soft _whuff_. Her breath stuttered with the remnants of fear, but when her mind caught up, she calmed and began to drift again. Before the figure could shift and bend over her, her eyes had shut once more.

The second time, she managed to keep her eyes open a little longer.

“There you are,” came Ada’s soft voice from her left. “You gave us quite a fright.”

Hecate looked at her friend blearily.

“Mildred?” she croaked.

Ada brought her a glass of water.

“Downstairs. Also asleep, but safe,” she answered as she helped Hecate lift her head.

“How long?”

“Two days. We thought it would be longer, actually.”

Hecate nodded, barely able to focus, and shut her eyes again.

The next thing she knew, her eyes were open again, but the light in the room had shifted from morning to afternoon. Hecate turned her head, but Ada was no longer beside her bed.

_“—have to talk to her sometime—”_

_“—best idea?—”_

Low voices crept in from the sitting room. One was Ada, but Hecate couldn’t identify the other. Just then, Morgana entered the room at a trot and surged straight for Hecate’s face.

“You are _far_ too old to be so undignified,” Hecate grumbled hoarsely as she stroked her familiar’s ears.

Morgana merely whined and continued to lick Hecate’s face.

“Hecate!”

Hecate heard the front door shut, followed by Ada bustling into the room.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were awake.”

Hecate sat up with Ada’s help and sipped at the glass of water handed to her.

“How is Mildred?”

“Awake, and downstairs. Asking after you.”

“How long now?” Hecate asked, relaxing a little after hearing that her apprentice was also awake.

“It’s just the third day now. I’m not certain you remember, but you’ve woken up a few times, so we weren’t overly worried. It seemed that your magic was simply replenishing itself. We weren’t too surprised that Mildred woke first; you had more magic to build back up.”

Hecate nodded. She still felt muddled and strange, and had trouble putting the next thought together.

“I suppose that makes sense. Has anyone—the plant?”

She wasn’t certain what the best thing to do would have been. Set guards? Take a torch to the woods?

“Yes,” Ada assured her, “we marked off the patch where you were, and warned people away.”

Yes, that made sense.

“And no one else has looked at or touched it?”

“No. I tried to get Miss Rosemont to have a look, but she dithered and finally said it had better be you.”

The exasperation was a bit unlike Ada. When Hecate looked closer, she could see that the lines on her friend’s face had gotten deeper, and there were dim circles under her eyes.

“Ada, you should rest.”

Ada smiled, but it was strained.

“As should you, Hecate.”

“I’ve rested enough, I’m just going to—”

Hecate attempted to rise, but was thwarted both by Ada and by her own physical weakness in the wake of the plant’s effects.

“You will do no such thing, Hecate Hardbroom. You’re to sleep now, and get well again. Worry about the rest of it later.”

Hecate settled back into her bed. She’d sleep, if Ada wanted, and she probably did need it. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t _think_ about the problem and try to come up with a solution.

* * *

 

Hecate fell into a fretful pattern of deep sleep, punctuated by fitful rest, food, and attempts to get out of bed that were nearly always thwarted by Ada. And when Ada couldn’t get there in time, Morgana _always_ knew what Hecate was planning and managed to bully her back into bed.

She appreciated it, but after another two days she was prepared to make as mad a dash for her broomstick as she could muster and damn the consequences.

“Morgana, don’t you dare try to stop me,” she warned the hound solemnly from her place on the edge of her bed.

Morgana merely looked at her with her head tipped to the side, then huffed and trotted into the sitting room.

Hecate sighed.

“You could have at least helped me up,” she grumbled after the dog. Then, she pushed herself to standing.

The room shifted a little, there was a bit of snow at the edges of her vision, but overall it wasn’t bad. She moved slowly, leaning on her desk and then the wall, and took the few steps into the sitting room very carefully.

Just then, there was a knock. Morgana, who had been standing just in front of the door, danced back from its swing as it opened.

Hecate rolled her eyes at her familiar’s behavior, but stopped short when she heard someone speak.

“HB, can we come in? Hello there, Morgana—”

Mildred made her way into the flat, followed by Julie Hubble. Julie stopped to admire Morgana, who was shamelessly mugging for affection.

“Hello, sweets, look what I’ve brought for you—”

When Julie pulled a bag of treats from her purse, Hecate cleared her throat.

“I hope you haven’t been spoiling her all week, or she’ll be quite impossible.”

“HB!”

Mildred came forward, but stopped short when she saw how Hecate was braced against the bookshelf.

“Can I help you—” She gestured at Hecate’s customary chair.

Hecate nodded and took Mildred’s arm.

“Millie’s going stir-crazy downstairs and she hasn’t stopped agitating to see you since you woke up,” Julie explained, moving towards the kitchen. “I hope we’re not intruding.”

Hecate shook her head.

“Not at all. I’ve been quite—stir-crazy myself.”

Julie looked between Hecate and Mildred, who had settled into the other armchair but was fidgeting dreadfully.

“I’ll just put some tea on, then, if you don’t--?”

When Hecate shook her head again, Julie disappeared into the kitchen.

“How are you feeling, Mildred?” Hecate prompted a few moments later.

Her apprentice looked as if she was weighing something very heavy in her mind.

“Are you alright, really?” she asked anxiously.

“I’m quite alright, as you can see,” Hecate answered.

“It’s not all back yet, is it.” It wasn’t a question.

“No.” Mildred still wouldn’t look at her, so Hecate cleared her throat and spoke again. “I shall expect a written account of your experience. It will be extremely useful in discerning what we encountered.”

That made Mildred look up, and Hecate was distressed to see that there were tears in her eyes.

“You still want me as your apprentice?”

Hecate raised her eyebrows.

“Why shouldn’t I?”

A stubborn tear slipped down Mildred’s cheek.

“It was my fault.”

Out of habit, Hecate snapped her fingers, but no handkerchief appeared. Mildred laughed at her expression, though, and while she usually wouldn’t encourage that sort of thing, at that particular moment she didn’t mind.

Mildred pulled her own handkerchief out of her pocket then, and wiped her face roughly.

“Mum has to keep reminding me to carry this,” she confided to Hecate. “I’ve gotten out of the habit.”

“Good thing, too, or you’d be using your sleeves and then Miss Hardbroom would think I’ve raised a proper hoyden,” Julie added jovially as she re-entered with a tray. She placed it on the side table and set about serving into Hecate’s coziest mugs.

When everyone had been apportioned their tea, the talk turned to happier matters, including some discussion of how Mildred was getting on as Hecate’s apprentice. She turned red when Hecate told Julie about her quick thinking with the antidote the week before; Hecate usually wouldn’t have shared a story that also highlighted her own mistakes to a parent of one of her students, particularly in light of recent events, but Mildred seemed to need some propping up. And Hecate _was_ very proud of her. Possibly also a bit unlike herself, after all the sleep and healing tonics and confinement to the indoors. But still proud.

Eventually, Hecate started to flag, and she saw Julie throw Mildred a pointed look before saying, “Perhaps we had best be getting along.”

Mildred glanced at Hecate and nodded.

“Sure, Mum.”

While Julie put the tea things back into the kitchen, Mildred stood and drifted closer to Hecate’s chair.

“Miss Hardbroom?”

“Yes, Mildred?”

“I’m _so_ sorry for touching that plant—” she started fiercely.

Hecate silenced her with a hand on her arm.

“It was a _mistake_. You have seen me make several mistakes in just the past few weeks. I regret that this one had such severe consequences, and I thank the Goddess that they were not worse. But at no point did it occur to me to blame you.”

Mildred nodded, her eyes on Hecate’s hand.

“Will this help you figure out what happened to Esmerelda?”

Hecate smiled a little.

“I hope so,” she whispered, and released Mildred’s arm. “Now go,” she ordered. “If you feel anything like I do, you should lie down.”

Mildred laughed as Julie returned to the room dusting off her hands.

“Ready, pet?” she asked, and Mildred nodded and headed for the door. “You go on, I’ll just help Miss Hardbroom into her room.”

“There’s no need—” Hecate started, but was interrupted by Julie standing directly in front of her and holding out her hands.

“I’m a nurse, love, I can tell when someone isn’t likely to make it very far on their own.” She wriggled her fingers, and Hecate took her hands reluctantly. “There, I’ve blocked you, just pull.”

Hecate obeyed, and found that with her legs held in place by Julie’s bracing, she could quite easily be pulled into standing.

“Now just lean a bit, there you are,” Julie encouraged her. “There’s a step, and another—”

“I do know my way around my own home, thank you,” Hecate said, rather more acidly than she had meant to sound.

“Sorry, it’s a habit.”

Hecate walked slowly, and soon they were at her bed. She let her knees collapse until she sat at the edge, then looked up at Julie.

“I’m sure I can manage from here,” she told her. “But thank you for your help.”

“You’ll keep her safe, won’t you?”

Hecate recognized some of the same fidgeting tics in the mother as she had often seen in the daughter.

“I’ll do my best,” she promised. “But that hasn’t been very good, lately.” Tears pricked at _her_ eyes, then, and she turned her face down to her lap.

“That’s not what I hear,” Julie said kindly. “Millie never stops talking about you, she’s always texting me something you’ve said—or something you’ve yelled at her for—but I’m always glad about that, honestly, because I know you’re looking out for her.” She laughed, and when Hecate looked, she had tears in her eyes too. “You are, aren’t you?”

“I am,” Hecate answered, and wiped at her eyes.

“I knew when I brought her that this would be different, even dangerous, and I can’t help but—”

“You can’t blame yourself either,” Hecate told her. “Ada’s much better at encouragement than I am, and I can’t give you empty platitudes. But I know for a fact that a witch who ignores her magic is much more dangerous than one that receives proper training. That is what you gave to Mildred, at any cost.” She held Julie’s eyes, trying to communicate her earnestness in a way in which she hadn’t much practice.

Julie nodded and sighed.

“Thank you. I’ve been so worried, and—I needed to hear that. From one of you, and it’s lovely that it’s you. Millie just thinks you’re the bats.”

Hecate felt her lips curve into the beginnings of a smile.

“Usually I discourage her liberal use of such slang, but in this case I shall allow it.”

Julie laughed, then sobered.

“Thank you. For that. And for what you did. Saving my daughter.”

Hecate had no answer for that, and let her head fall again. She was certainly unused to such praise, but found it not unpleasant.

“Well, we’ll check in on you, and I’m just downstairs if you need anything,” Julie added lamely a few moments later. “Just bang on the floor, I guess, or send Morgana. Pippa said that it would be a few days before your magic is back to its usual, you know, until you’re back to your old self.”

Hecate tuned out of the last half of what Julie was saying, too distracted by a single word.

_Pippa?_

“Well, bye then,” Julie ended when Hecate did not answer, and left the room.

Hecate heard the door shut behind her, but stayed seated at the edge of her bed. Pippa had spoken to Julie Hubble, had been in her flat? And a memory, or the edge of one, dug into the detritus of her mind, that when examined more closely—Ada, Ada and—Pippa. Both of them, together, had come with Morgana. Pippa had helped to save her in the woods, and then apparently stayed to watch over her.

And what was Hecate supposed to do with _that_ information?


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hecate turns to Pippa for help with the unknown plant.

Hecate tried very hard to keep her mind off Julie’s revelation, but there were several obstacles standing in her way. For one, she slept less and less the stronger she got, leaving her longer and longer days to weather trapped in her flat alone. The boredom made her return to the actions, motives, and feelings of one Pippa Pentangle over and over again.

Another barrier was that with that information in her grasp, Hecate was suddenly able to discern proof of Pippa’s presence wherever she looked: in the ‘we’ that Ada adopted to describe predictions and theories regarding the plant and its effects; in the suspiciously new and brightly-packaged blends of healing teas that now resided in her cupboards; and in the scribbled notes in a bubbly cursive script that she found on her desk regarding Hecate’s sleeping patterns before she’d truly woken and Mildred’s initial accounts of what had happened.

The third obstacle, of course, was that she simply could not puzzle out just what Pippa’s game was.

The notes were useful, at least, in that they were the only evidence she had of the plant’s effects beyond her own and Mildred’s memories. Ada had written a few things as well, but however much Hecate loathed to admit it, Pippa's were a _bit_ more thorough. She had completed a comprehensive account of both sets of recollections; Ada and Pippa’s notes about her own recovery prior to awakening, as well as a few scribbles on Mildred gleaned, no doubt, from Julie were the only other data Hecate had.

After a few days, her magic had returned enough to itch. She’d run circles in her mind that matched the one she was slowly but steadily wearing into the carpet of her sitting room. At Ada’s urging, she’d briefly considered taking her slow pacing to the village square, but in the end, she couldn’t bring herself to that kind of exposure. She had no doubt that she was already at the center of more gossip, and was in no mood to expose herself to stares and whispers that she couldn’t transfer away from.

And the plant, the damned plant, still just out there in the wild woods, and her with no way to reach it for at least another three days, and that was if she continued to strengthen at the same rate. The prospect of those long days and nights seemed a deep, horrendous pit from which she was not certain she could emerge with her mind intact. At any rate, that was how it felt, and that was how she posed it to Ada when she mirrored Hecate to check in.

“You could come to my shop, sit in my office?” Ada suggested. “A change of pace, perhaps.”

Hecate shook her head.

“I need to know what this plant is, Ada, and what caused it to have the effect it does. It’s extremely dangerous, I don’t have to tell you that.”

Ada’s brow furrowed.

“I understand. But please make sure you're taking care of yourself, as well.”

Hecate had been hoping that Ada would have some miraculous task that she could focus on until she was strong enough to go in search of the plant, but that hope had been dashed.

"What are you going to do now?" Ada asked with concern. 

In that moment, Hecate made a rather drastic decision.

“Ada,” she said slowly, “I believe I am correct in stating that Miss Pentangle is still in the village?”

* * *

 

Pippa was, of course, still there; Hecate’s wishes had never been in the habit of coming true. She felt an odd sense of relief, though, which she put down to finally being able to make some progress on the origins of the mysterious plant.

Mirroring her seemed too—close. Instead, Hecate penned another short note and gave it to Morgana.

She hadn’t long to wait; not half an hour later, instead of the reply she’d expected, she heard footsteps on the stairs and a knock at the door.

Expecting Ada, or perhaps Mildred, Hecate twirled a finger and the door opened. Her magic had returned enough for that.

Her eyes widened as someone else entirely came through the door; she immediately tried to cast a tidying spell that died before it left her fingertips. 

Pippa poked her head in and entered tentatively, not at all as self-assuredly as she’d behaved every other time Hecate had seen her since she arrived.

“Hecate, I hope it’s not—” she started, then seemed to reconsider. “I thought you might appreciate promptness,” she said instead. It was awkward, in a way that seemed unlike her usual confident self. 

“I suppose now is not the worst time,” Hecate murmured, and gestured at the armchair opposite her own. She did wish she’d had some warning; she would have put on proper shoes, not the slippers that sat under her chair while her feet stayed warm tucked up underneath her. Although, apparently Pippa had already seen her flat, and her pajamas, and rather more than Hecate wanted her to see altogether in the preceding few days.

“I wondered when I’d hear from you,” Pippa began as she crossed the room.

Hecate arched an eyebrow as severely as she was able.

“Do most people find your overconfidence charming?” Hecate drawled, and snapped her fingers to start the kettle in the kitchen. She had to try a few times, to her deep and enduring embarrassment. She hid it with as much disdain as she could summon. “Or just men?”

Pippa sighed, standing with her hand braced on the armchair, and Hecate balled her hands underneath her blanket.

“I had rather hoped we could be adults about this,” Pippa said quietly. Her shoulders were slumped, and there were crow's feet at her eyes that Hecate was positive hadn't been there a few days prior. “I’d like to help you, if you’ll let me.”

Hecate breathed in slowly, held the breath for a count of three, and exhaled loudly.

“I apologize,” she said reluctantly. “I am not used to feeling—” She gestured at herself, tucked into her armchair like an invalid.

“Perhaps we should stick to the magic theory," Pippa suggested, and settled delicately into the armchair. 

“I would appreciate that.”

Pippa relaxed a little.

“Were my notes useful?” she asked, nodding at the sheaf of papers Hecate had laid out over the table beside her chair. “I-- _we_  tried to be as thorough as possible, and Julie helped with Mildred’s symptoms. She’s a nurse, so her observations were very good once she knew what I was looking for.”

“You must have been here quite a lot,” Hecate ventured, practically teetering on the edge of saying ‘thank you.’ Goddess, what _had_ come over her?

“You’re welcome,” Pippa said simply after studying her for a moment. Then she dove straight back in. “Now, one thing I noticed was that your sleep cycles seemed to be longer, nearly two hours instead of ninety minutes. Is that normal for you, or was that the effect of the plant?”

* * *

 

The discussion was unlike Hecate had had in years: fast-paced, with each of them catching the thoughts of the other and carrying on to the next seamlessly. It was _exhilarating_ in a way that Hecate had never thought mere conversation could be. Despite herself, she found that she was thoroughly enjoying it. To judge from the growing quirk upwards at the corner of Pippa's mouth, she felt the same. 

They continued back and forth for nearly an hour, both asking questions of the other and taking notes. Hecate wrote on her own loose paper and Pippa in an elegantly-bound purple notebook that she conjured with a snap and an unexpected wink that made Hecate’s gaze shoot back into her own lap. When the kettle whistled, Pippa went to get it without being asked; when she returned, she merely smiled and handed Hecate her favorite cup without a word.

“How did you manage?” Hecate asked suddenly. They’d seemingly exhausted all their scientific questions, but one still scratched at the back of Hecate’s throat, waiting to be asked. “How did you transfer us back here?”

Unspoken was the statement: _I’m the only one I know who can do that._

“Portal spell,” Pippa told her, a glint of something cocky and delighted in her eye. “A friend of mine developed it. I used it when I arrived, actually, came directly from my parents’ with my bags.”

Hecate’s eyebrows shot up unbidden.

“The power that must consume, Leith is nearly a hundred miles from here!”

An odd expression came over Pippa’s face.

“Yes, it is.” She rallied, and went on with great gusto. “But it doesn’t take much power, actually. The way it works is that it makes use of the Nothing that things go to when they’ve been vanished. The Nothing is actually _something_ —”

“Yes, yes, negative space is still space,” Hecate urged impatiently. “But how on _earth_ do you send someone through it without suffocating them?”

Pippa grinned and Hecate found herself leaning forward to match her posture and enthusiasm.

The debate that followed was even more exhilarating than the preceding rapid-fire discussion of symptoms and observations. Hecate found herself, for once, striving to think quickly enough, to match Pippa’s knowledge and zeal without giving an inch, found herself arguing and learning a new method in a way that hadn’t happened in _years_. Usually she learned of new magics and spells through journal articles and the occasional lecture, and here was someone who clearly did the same and more, who had a whole  _network_ of contacts at the cutting edge of magical practice.

While Pippa launched into a diatribe on the wizards who had scoffed at her friend’s findings, Hecate let herself remember what their friendship had been like, before. She’d forgotten, tried to forget, really, how passionate Pippa was, about _everything_. How she made the person she was speaking to feel as if she had never wanted anything more than to be there, at that moment, speaking with that person. The time spent with Pippa had been the first and only time she’d ever felt like the center of someone’s world. She remembered that; she also remembered how addictive it had been, how difficult it was to leave behind. How dangerous that had been, and still was.

“I hate to keep you when I’m sure you’re so busy,” Hecate cut in, just as Pippa was delivering a particularly scathing personal judgement on a stodgy journal referee. “I’m sure you have better things to do.”

Pippa’s eyes widened, and her mouth hung open for a moment before she fully registered what Hecate had said.

“Of—of course,” she answered with a little laugh. “And you must be tired. I’ll just—” she waved a hand nervously, and Hecate heard the dishes land with a small crash in the sink. “I’m sorry, I’ll—”

Hecate said nothing, but moved to stand and escort Pippa out. Pippa started towards the door, but then swung back. Hecate stopped short, stumbled a little, and stared at Pippa’s face not two feet from her own.

“I wanted you to be a terrible teacher and a worse witch,” Pippa stated baldly.

Hecate blinked.

“I wanted your shop to be a mess and the rumors to be true,” Pippa continued. “I wanted to be justified in not liking you, I wanted an objective _reason_. And I don’t have one.” She stuttered out a laugh. “You’re prickly and insufferable and _infuriating_ , but your students love you. And despite what you might think, the rest of the village does too. And I—”

For a heart-stopping moment, Hecate was not at all sure of what Pippa was going to say next.

“I missed you,” Pippa said softly, her eyes on Hecate’s face, while all Hecate could do was stare at Pippa’s shoes. “And I’m sorry for whatever I did.”

Hecate’s breath caught in her throat, and she looked at Pippa. Some of the panic she felt must have bled through, because the next thing she knew, Pippa’s hand was a reassuring pressure on her arm.

“We don’t have to discuss it,” she said kindly, “unless you’d like to, later. But I’d like to help you with your research, if you’ll let me?”

Her face was so hopeful that Hecate managed an awkward bob of her head and a mumbled ‘of course.’

“Thank you,” Pippa said simply. Then she leaned in and kissed Hecate’s cheek.

Hecate could only assume that she’d left, because the next thing she fully registered was Morgana whining and nudging her hand with her snout in a quest for more of the treats Julie had brought her. 


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hecate and Pippa go to the woods to retrieve a sample of the unknown plant, and are accompanied by someone unexpected.

She’d promised that she’d include Pippa in her further research into the plant. An awkward promise to have made, honestly, because she was fully aware that she very much wanted to fulfill it, which made actually doing so a terrible idea entirely. Or something like that. She still felt muddled on the topic, and fully blamed her encounter with the plant for her mental turmoil.

But in the end, despite the warning bells in her head, Hecate sent a note with Morgana two days after her afternoon with Pippa. She received a reply within a half-hour. The quick _‘Of course! I’ll come by at 8,’_ signed with a dashing _‘PP’_ made her nerves jolt in a way that felt thrilling and sickening all at the same time. She slept fitfully, too full of anticipation over the plant and, she could admit to herself, over another day with Pippa that rest was slow in coming.

The morning dawned with weak light, but no rain, which Hecate counted as good as she could expect. When a knock sounded at the front door to the shop, she gathered up the thermoses of piping hot tea that she’d brewed and stepped out into the chill morning air.

“Well met, Hecate!”

“Well met,” Hecate returned, to both Pippa and, unexpectedly, Ada. Suddenly, Hecate was very aware that she’d forgotten to inform her friend of her plans for the day, and a tendril of guilt crept in under her collar. “Ada, would you—?” She had already begun to extend a thermos, and ended up holding out both hands, offering one to each witch at her door.

Pippa grinned and took hers; Ada smiled and waved the other off, and Hecate tucked it under her arm.

“No, thank you, dear. I just ran into Miss Pentangle down the road, and I thought I’d come to see you off.” A hint of concern crept into her voice. “Are you quite sure you’re up for this?”

Hecate put her hand on Ada’s arm comfortingly.

“We’ll be quite all right. And I have to puzzle this out, you know I do.”

Ada nodded and placed her hand over Hecate’s.

“You know what you can bear, and what’s best,” she agreed. “I’d better get back then, I left Maud in charge of the specialty scones this morning.” She paused, then said, “You will be careful, won’t you?” Hecate nodded, and Ada seemed to accept that. She nodded back, then turned and strode back down the hill towards her tea shop.

Hecate watched her go for a moment, then turned back to Pippa, who was studying the the still-closed familiar shop just opposite Hecate’s rather determinedly.

“Shall we—”

“Are you—”

They both stopped, and Pippa laughed. It eased the tension a little, and made Hecate smile too.

“It must be nice, having Ada,” Pippa ventured.

Hecate raised an eyebrow.

“It is,” she answered, a little confused. “She’s been very kind to me since I moved here.” _Kind_ hardly seemed to cover twenty-five years of a deep and lasting friendship, but she was not certain how best to convey that to Pippa. She couldn’t quite pin down why she should care that Pippa understood her relationship with Ada, either.

“She was very worried about you.”

“Yes,” Hecate said awkwardly, “I imagine she was.”

They looked at each other, and Pippa opened her mouth to speak, but just then a shout from behind Hecate interrupted the moment.

“Look out there!”

Pippa grabbed Hecate’s arm and pulled her away, just as a pair of figures on a broom landed with a _thump_ where Hecate had been a moment before.

“Sorry there, HB,” Enid said sheepishly, straightening up on the broom and brushing off her uniform while her passenger fought to untangle her head from her upturned cloak. “I misjudged the descent.”

“Well met, Miss Nightshade,” Hecate said pointedly, her voice belying none of her alarm at their arrival. “And well met, Miss—”

Her voice died in her throat when the second figure managed to get their cloak in order and she saw who it was.

“Esme.”

Her former apprentice’s nickname slipped out. It was rare that Hecate grew close enough and comfortable enough to even use one of her student’s nicknames; indeed, using their full first names was as close as she ever got to informality. But she’d known Esmerelda for so long, and, in the end, Hecate could not lie to herself and pretend that she _hadn’t_ been her favorite student.

“Well met, Miss Hardbroom,” Esme returned, giving the proper gesture with good grace. “Well met,” she added to Pippa, who returned the greeting quietly. “HB, I know you’re going to find that plant. I’m going with you,” she continued as she dismounted the broom.

Hecate found her voice again.

“You will do no such thing,” she sputtered, barely able to tamp down her panic. “You will not—not without magic—”

Enid edged away, and Esme waved her off.

“Go on, I’ll be alright for a few hours. Thank you for the ride.”

“Pleasure,” Enid replied, with a cautious glance at Hecate. “Miss Hardbroom, Miss Pentangle.”

She kicked off into the sky, and it was not until she was above the rooftops that Hecate realized Esme had no other form of transportation.

“Enid Nightshade, you—” she started heatedly, but stopped as Enid became rapidly smaller and disappeared from view towards the next village over. “You have to go home,” she said to Esme, turning back to look at the girl.

Esme’s expression did not waver.

“I can’t, HB,” she said. “I mean, practically speaking, Enid’s not done with her rounds until three, and it’s too far for you to transfer me. I suppose I could walk,” she said speculatively.

Hecate blanched.

“We will mirror your mother, and—”

“And she’ll come and collect me?” Esme’s face broke into a look of resentment with hurt shadowed beneath.

“Sorry, just want to make sure I’ve got this right,” Pippa cut in smoothly. “You’re Esmerelda Hallow, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Esme answered, frowning. “I’m sorry, I haven’t—”

“I’m Pippa Pentangle. The Council sent me to consult on—” Pippa glanced over at Hecate and let the sentence hang in the air. “—a number of things,” she finished.

“I know what you're here for,” Esme said, rather coldly, in Hecate’s estimation. “HB, can I talk to you?”

“If I may,” Pippa started, without regard for Esme’s attempt to talk to Hecate. “I think she should come.”

Both Esme and Hecate stared at her, mouths agape.

“You do?” Hecate asked incredulously.

“You do?” Esme echoed, not a moment later.

“Yes,” Pippa said firmly. “Yes, I think that would be very helpful. Shall we?”

“I don’t think—” Hecate started, but stopped when Pippa simply started walking.

“Hecate, are you coming?”

Esme grinned back at Hecate and followed Pippa. Hecate huffed in frustration and started after them.

Clearly, the day was only going to get more complicated as it went on. Best to save her arguments.

* * *

 

By the time they’d reached the edge of the forest, Hecate was short enough of breath to stuff her pride and inquire if Pippa couldn’t simply transfer them.

“I would,” Pippa told her apologetically, “but I need to restock some of the materials for it. I used the last of them to get you and Mildred—” she paused, looking uncertainly at Esme. “To get you out of the forest.”

“I know what happened,” Esme informed her after catching her hesitancy. “It’s all anyone’s talking about.” Hecate sincerely doubted that the _anyone_ in question was really telling Esme directly, considering that the girl herself had lost her magic to the same plant that had affected Mildred and Hecate, but said nothing.

“At any rate,” Pippa continued, “I’m afraid we’ll have to walk. I’m sorry, I know you’re still—after the plant—we can stop to rest often.”

Esme cracked a grin.

“Oh, HB’s not tired because of the plant,” she informed Pippa with a glint of her old mischievousness in her eyes. “HB never walks _anywhere_ , this must be killing her.”

“I can’t imagine what you’re implying,” Hecate drawled, but it lacked the bite she might have conjured for anyone else. She even allowed the corners of her mouth to edge up.

“Do you really transfer _everywhere_?” Pippa asked with avid interest. “They said things in the village, but I thought it was an exaggeration.”

Hecate shrugged.

“Everywhere,” Esme confirmed with a laugh. “Even just across the room. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you walk more than five feet before,” she added to Hecate.

Hecate rolled her eyes.

“Yes, well—” She cleared her throat. “Perhaps we should—?” Then it was her turn to walk away without waiting for a reply.

After a few minutes, Pippa let their conversation about the dynamics of transference—in which Hecate noticed she’d carefully avoided asking Hecate questions that she might have deemed too _personal_ —lapse, and wandered ahead. Esme came up to walk next to Hecate in silence.

“I tried to come to the shop,” she started eventually. “Mum wouldn’t let me. She’s taking all this really hard.”

Hecate glanced at her, but stayed silent.

“Enid said Mildred said you’d been wanting to talk to me,” Esme continued, and Hecate nodded. “About what happened to me, and my recovery, and things like that. She was the one who got the message to me, last night.” She laughed, a little hollowly. "She bullied Ethel into giving me the mirror so she could talk to me. I wish I knew her secret, I can never get Ethel to do anything."

Hecate cleared her throat.

“I also tried to come to your home, during your recovery,” she ventured. “Your mother was—displeased.”

“She blames you,” Esme admitted. “I’m so sorry, that she—”

“It’s quite all right,” Hecate assured her quickly. “It’s—it’s not at all your fault.”

“Isn’t it?” Esme asked hoarsely. Tears were starting at the corners of her eyes, and Hecate passed her a handkerchief wordlessly. “Thanks. Only I must have touched it, right? How else would I have lost my magic?”

“When did the effects start?” Hecate asked, as kindly as she could. It was not, she feared, as kind as Ada or Pippa might have been, but Esme looked at her and she could tell the effort was appreciated.

“When we were at the fire, after dark. We all had tea, and then it was in my throat, and everything felt numb, like—” Esme swallowed hard.

A thought stirred in Hecate’s mind, but she laid it to rest for the time being.

“I could still feel my body, but my magical self was, was _gone_. It felt cut off, as if it had died. And now,” she continued, “I just feel—hollow. Like there should be more of me, but there _isn’t_.”

The handkerchief Hecate had lent her was crumpled in her hand, balled up beyond recognition. Hecate’s hands, too, clenched in on themselves involuntarily at the resonance she found in Esme’s words.

_As if there should have been more of me, but there wasn’t._

No one could have stopped it from happening to her, she’d accepted that a long time ago, but for Esme—

“I am so sorry.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Esme answered fiercely, and stopped. “It wasn’t, Miss Hardbroom. We were all old enough to come out alone, and you couldn’t have known what would happen. It was an accident, and if it was anyone’s fault, it was mine.”

Hecate looked at her former apprentice with doubt, but was saved from her attempts at apologies by Pippa striding back down the path towards them.

“I think I’ve found the markers,” she told them breathlessly. “Extra care from here on. Shall we?”


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After collecting the samples, Hecate returns to the village with Pippa and Esme.

“Look at the saw-edges—I’ve never seen such—”

“Is she often like this?” Pippa murmured the question to Esme, but Hecate was not so distracted that she had lost all grasp on her non-visual senses.

“All the time,” Esme whispered back.

Pippa giggled.

“I can hear you, you know,” Hecate said crisply, her attention fully on the plant in front of her. “This is hardly the time for giggling.”

“Three hours ago, it was intimidating. Now—” Pippa let her voice trail off and gestured at the patch in front of them. They’d clearly marked the edges, so that it was impossible to stumble into by accident. “I’m afraid the novelty has rather worn off.”

Esme had begun to wander, and Hecate kept a close eye on her as she stood and brushed off her skirt with heavily gloved hands.

“This plant is likely the reason that girl no longer has magic,” she reminded Pippa in a low, tense voice. “I will not allow you to make light of that.”

Pippa held Hecate’s eyes and nodded solemnly before her gaze also followed Esme.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I’m not used to—”

“Neither am I, and yet—” Hecate cut herself off and sighed. “Do you have all the samples I handed to you?”

“Yes.”

“Sealed?”

“All of them, twice.”

“Then we should begin our return.”

“Hecate—”

Pippa’s hand stayed Hecate’s return to a crouch for one last look at the plant, a plant for which they still had no name. The hand on her arm, though its pressure was light, felt extraordinarily strange after having specifically avoided touching anything for the last several hours. It sent the nerves in her arm into tingles, radiating up her arm.

She pulled her arm away.

“If she’d just touched the plant, she could have gotten out in time to save her magic.” Pippa spoke in a hush, her voice just the barest whisper above silence. “It couldn’t have been skin contact.”

“It wasn’t,” Hecate confirmed, just as quietly. Unbidden, her eyes tracked back to where Esme had turned and begun to return to where they stood. “She said she felt the effects when they were having tea.”

Pippa’s eyes grew wide.

“You mean—”

Hecate nodded sharply and pulled back.

“Are you ready to return?” she asked Esme.

“Sure,” Esme confirmed. “I’ve taken notes on everything. Did you notice that now that’s it’s getting on to dusk, the leaves have the slightest shimmer?”

Hecate almost strained her neck, her head snapped back towards the plant so quickly.

“It does? But that isn’t common at all for ferns—”

“You weren’t joking, were you?” Pippa asked Esme rhetorically. Now it was Esme’s turn to laugh. Pippa crouched down next to Hecate, sober again so suddenly that Hecate knew she was merely putting on a bright face for Esme’s benefit. “Hecate, it’s beginning to get dark. We should go back.”

“But the plant—”

“Will still exhibit light-producing properties in it’s preserved form, as long as the roots stay intact until we can replant them, which—” she forestalled Hecate’s protestations with an outstretched hand, “they will, because _I_ am carrying them, and I don’t intend to let anything happen to them.”

Hecate delicately removed Pippa’s hand from in front of her face.

“Very well,” she granted grudgingly. “Although they could be light- _reflecting_ properties.”

“You’re insufferable.”

“You enjoy it.”

The response slipped out before she could stop herself, and by Pippa’s expression, Hecate could tell that she’d shocked her a bit too.

“Do you need any other supplies while we’re out here, HB?”

“No,” Hecate responded, still having trouble taking her eyes off Pippa’s. “No,” she repeated, finally breaking away and stepping around Pippa carefully. “We should return directly to the village.”

* * *

 

“So I gather your family aren’t taking things particularly well,” Pippa ventured as they neared the village.

Esme seemed to have taken to Pippa quickly; Hecate supposed that most people did. They’d been chatting all day, but it was only now that their words penetrated her thoughts on the plant they’d collected.

“My mum’s gone absolutely bonkers, I think we all know that,” Esme answered. She turned and looked back at Hecate. “I did try to stop her, you know, but I didn’t actually realize that ‘comprehensive educational review of the district’ meant specifically targeting you, HB. Not until Enid told me what’s been going on on the way over. I’m very sorry.”

Hecate waved a hand and shook her head, trying to act as if Ursula Hallow and her personal vendetta were not currently turning her life upside down. She was also rather out of breath, and was extraordinarily thankful when she saw the lights of the village appear around a bend in the path.

“You couldn’t have known, nor done anything if you had, I’m sure,” Pippa interjected tactfully, for which Hecate spared a brief but grateful smile. “And you have a sister?”

“Two,” Esme replied, looking happy to talk about something slightly different. “You’ve met Sybil, actually, if you’re covering HB’s classes for the time being.”

“Yes, I remember.” Pippa smiled. “She’s quite bright.”

Esme grinned.

“Smarter than me and Ethel put together, probably.”

“And Ethel?”

Just as quickly, Esme’s smile dimmed.

“She—she was in Mildred and Enid’s classes. She hasn’t been taking things well,” she said vaguely.

Pippa looked awkward, but Hecate did not know what she could say to make anything better. Esme continued; it occurred to Hecate that perhaps she had no one else to tell her fears to, and she berated herself again for not trying harder to contact her former apprentice.

“Ethel’s still really mad, about Mildred, I mean.” She glanced at Hecate and went on. “She thought for sure it’d be her. Even before—we’d talked about being apprentices together. I really wanted to, but she said no one ever saw her, with me around.” The unspoken implication, and the only thing Hecate could think of, was that now, Esmerelda wasn't in any danger of overshadowing her siblings; none at all. 

“That’s very difficult,” Pippa said sympathetically. They’d reached the road where Hecate’s shop stood, and she stopped short in the road. “If you need anyone to talk to— that is, I don’t know anything about it, but—”

Hecate blessed Pippa for offering, even as her head screamed that she should have offered the same months ago, that if there was anyone in Esme’s life who could even come close to understanding what she was going through, it was Hecate.

“Thank you,” Esme said. “I’d like that.” Her smile returned. “Especially if you’ve got a new method of transference like HB said. I’d like to see that.”

“Then you shall,” Pippa agreed with a smile. “Shall I call for your friend?”

“I should get the samples inside,” Hecate interjected awkwardly. “Esme—”

“I’ll see you soon, HB,” Esme promised. “I’ll work something out with Enid, start coming to the village sometimes.”

Hecate inclined her head, still wrapped in thoughts of how she’d failed Esme, how visiting wouldn’t do any good unless she could help somehow. And that hinged around the plant.

She settled for a quick “safe flight,” and moved to relieve Pippa of the bags she carried, leaving  Esme to direct Pippa through the process of mirroring Enid.

She was nearly to her workroom when she shifted her grip a little too suddenly, stepped on the uneven floorboard at just at the wrong moment, and tripped. The bag flew out of her hands and landed with a thump, spilling the plant samples everywhere.

When Pippa came into the shop a few minutes later, Hecate was on hands and knees, scrubbing the floor with the strongest magical trace-remover she had in her possession.

“What happened?”

Hecate bit back the automatic sharp response that lived on the tip of her tongue after all these years, even after twenty-five years of teaching, and breathed in to give herself a chance to think of something constructive to say.

“I tripped.”

Pippa looked as panicked as Hecate had felt.

“The plant?”

“None of the inner seals broke, to my knowledge. This is a safety precaution.”

Pippa sighed in relief, then rolled up her sleeves and gestured at the work room.

“Do you have an extra brush?”

* * *

 

Long after dark, Pippa yawned. Hecate had to stifle the urge to follow suit.

“I hate waiting.”

“Patience is the mark of a wise witch.”

Pippa stretched her arms to the ceiling and rocked from side to side. They’d been bent over Hecate’s work bench for hours, but they’d finally gotten the last of the samples planted and sealed off.

“You were always much wiser than me.”

“I’m glad that time has granted you clarity in that regard,” Hecate replied with arched eyebrows, avoiding the unspoken invitation to talk about their shared adolescence.

“Are you sure we have to wait until tomorrow,” Pippa asked, or rather, whined, almost.

“Are you always like this when you’re tired?” Hecate inquired, then flushed a little when Pippa regarded her with a growing smile.

“I am,” she said finally, “always like this. Full stop.”

Despite herself, Hecate smiled.

“Go home. They’ll be here in the morning, assuming nothing untoward happens before then.”

Pippa grinned back.

“This was fun. We’re quite good together, you know.”

Hecate swallowed, reining back her mind from the leap it had made.

“I suppose working with you was not the hardship I might have expected,” she responded primly. Luckily, Pippa just laughed.

“You have a way with compliments, Hecate Hardbroom,” she said, pointing at Hecate teasingly. “Good night, then. I'll see you in the morning.”

This time, Hecate was ready when Pippa bussed her cheek. She did not freeze; she did not stutter. She was quite proud of that.

Even if she probably shouldn’t have been thinking about it still, thirty minutes later, as she drifted off to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, this wasn't the most exciting chapter, nor the best-written one, but excitement shall abound in Sunday's update :) Thanks for reading!


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hecate is woken in the middle of the night by an alarming new development.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you like music with your reading, "Hollow Attack" from the soundtrack for Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children goes exceptionally well with this chapter :)

She’d been plagued by strange dreams since she’d woken after the woods; that night was no different. This time, there was the plant she now recognized down to each aspect of its poisonous parts, glowing in the dim light from a waning moon, growing, creeping along the ground, faster and faster, until—

“Miss Hardbroom!”

Hecate woke with a gasp and startled back in her bed, away from the figure that moved through her room, framed only by dim light from the window.

“Miss Hardbroom, you have to come _now_ , the plant, it’s back, it’s coming up the stairs—”

Hecate threw her legs over the side of her bed, stumbled upright, and caught Mildred by the arms. Behind Mildred, Morgana trotted into the room, a growl rumbling in her chest.

“Mildred Hubble, what _do_ you mean?”

There were tear-tracks on Mildred’s cheeks, but she paused and took a breath before responding shakily.

“The plant, it’s growing up the stairs, it’s nearly to my flat!”

Though she had gasped no breath out nor sucked one in, Hecate felt as though, all of a sudden, there were no air in her lungs, none at all, and she fought the urge to transfer herself far, far away.

“You will remain here,” Hecate told Mildred firmly. Mildred’s eyes went wide again, and Hecate tightened her grasp on Mildred’s upper arms. “I _will not_ let anything harm you, Mildred. Is your mother still here?”

Mildred shook her head, and her braids shook too. They made Mildred resemble her ten-year-old self, new to the magical world and so amazed, but never frightened. She was frightened now, and Hecate swallowed hard, determined to protect her even if it meant doing exactly what her mind was screaming at her not to do.

“I am going to check the stairwell.”

With a thought, her heaviest boots were on her feet and the thickest leggings she could conjure were on her legs, though she left her pajamas; she had no idea what strains might be placed on her magic in the next few minutes, and she still wasn’t up to full strength.

She plunged past Morgana and out into the corridor with a ball of light in her hand, leant over the banister, and peered into the stairwell.

At first, she could see nothing, and the thought that perhaps, perhaps Mildred had simply had a nightmare as Hecate had, a frighteningly realistic one—but then, in the sliver of the stairs between the first and second floors that she could see, she caught sight of the faintest hint of slithering motion.

She extinguished the light in her hand, but a soft glimmer remained, emanating from the plant growing up the stairs. The bit she’d seen was not the farthest up; there were tendrils on the banister on the second floor, and she couldn’t see what it was doing near the walls. A thin whispering filled the space, and she fancied it was getting louder.

“Mildred,” she called, striding back into the apartment, “take my broom.” She thrust it into her apprentice’s hands and hurried to the shelves that lined the walls of her sitting room. Beside her, Morgana whined. As she searched for the materials she was looking for, she spoke as rapidly as she was able. “Fly to Miss Cackle’s and wake her. Tell her to get everyone out of the village. Go as fast as you can, don’t stop for anything, and _touch as little as possible_. We still don’t know how exactly the plant spreads its effects.”

Mildred grasped the broom firmly and set her face in a stubborn frown.

“What about you? You can’t stay here.”

Hecate hastily dumped an armful of the things she’d gathered onto the dining table and rushed to the window. She flung it open, grabbed Mildred’s arm, and thrust her apprentice towards the opening.

“ _Go_ ,” she ordered. “I’ll transfer myself out.” Mildred looked doubtful, but Hecate did not give her a chance to argue. Checking that Mildred was astride the broom, Hecate flicked her fingers and sent the broom out the window.

Mildred yelped and clutched at the broom, but stayed upright.

“ _Go_ ,” Hecate repeated, and turned away from the window towards Morgana. “You too, but be careful,” she said sternly. With a whine, Morgana trotted away and disappeared from sight. As soon as she did, Hecate did her best to put both Morgana and Mildred out of her mind; she had to trust that Mildred would get to everyone in time.

She closed her eyes, concentrated, and breathed out smoothly.

“Goddess help me,” she murmured, before grabbing up the items she’d chosen and dashing out the door again.

When she reached it, the plant had plastered itself around Mildred’s door; the wood was warped and cracked, as was that of the banister. Even with heavy boots and leggings, the prospects for making her way over the plant and down the stairs to her workshop were grim; she wasn’t certain that they were at all structurally sound, and she couldn’t spare the energy to reinforce anything until she knew what else she’d need it for.

As if alerted to her presence, the plant quickened and surged at her feet. She retreated a few steps, only for the same thing to happen. She sorted through the vials she carried until she found the one she wanted; uncorking it, she tossed its contents at her feet and muttered a spell. Smoke rose from the step below, and the plant curled away, but not for long; as the smoke dissipated, it grew right over the spot she’d warded.

Muttering under her breath, Hecate made a quick summoning motion with her hands, but only three of the four bottles she’d called from her workshop made it rocketing into her grasp. When she tried the fourth again, it felt stuck; the plant must have gotten it.

As if it felt the magic she wielded, the plant changed direction, and headed more directly towards her. At the very least, she already held her first choice of potions. Uncorking it, Hecate began to slosh its contents down the stairs.

It had the desired effect; the plant’s growth slowed where the potion touched it, and Hecate’s mouth curled into a victorious smile.

But then the potion sank into the plant, and it glistened anew. It grew _faster_. It had abandoned its earlier wandering pattern and was forming a thick mass that moved with greater purpose up the stairs, more quickly and directly than ever.

“Hecate, where are you?” a panicked voice called from her flat.

“Here,” Hecate called back, and retreated another half-dozen steps with her eyes still on the plant. A theory began to form in her mind. “Down here. Don’t come too close.”

Hecate glanced over her shoulder and saw that it was Pippa, standing horrorstruck at the top of the staircase.

“Don’t come too close,” she repeated.

“Look out!”

Hecate looked down, hissed, and nearly tripped backwards in her haste to find higher ground. The plant was growing faster than ever, reaching out with thick, shimmering vines that pulsed and whispered with menacing allure.

“Did you fly here?” Hecate asked urgently as she joined Pippa at the top of the stairs.

Pippa eyed the seething river of leafy vines flowing up the stairs, covering a stair in the time it took Hecate to reach her.

“No,” she answered, “no, I transferred.”

Hecate grabbed Pippa’s arm and dragged her with her into the flat, slamming the door behind them. She found her spare broom and thrust it towards Pippa; Pippa took it automatically.

“We’ll have to share,” she told her. “I take it that Ada is getting everyone out?”

Pippa nodded.

“She’s sent an alarm out on everyone’s mirrors and maglets, full volume, and Miss Drill’s deploying some of the older students to fly to the windows, make sure everyone’s heard.”

Hecate suddenly became aware of a shrill siren sounding from her bedroom, paired with another emanating from the maglet she’d left next to her reading chair. It certainly sounded loud enough to wake everyone, but she blessed Dimity for making sure.

“Hecate, what do we do?”

Hecate turned back to Pippa, interrupted in her silent calculations. Pippa’s hands gripped at Hecate’s broom, and she stared back at her with wide eyes.

“It absorbs magic,” she said slowly. “It doesn’t just cut off magic, it—sucks it in, it feeds off of it—” Her mind raced, but without an end in sight.

“Okay, so—” Pippa rolled a hand through the air, prompting her to continue. “We can’t use magic to stop it.”

“Not in the usual way.”

“Torpidity potion?”

“Absorbed it, and grew faster. It will probably do the same to anything inherently magical.”

“Freeze it?”

“It seems to grow perfectly well in cold weather. I don’t think we could get the temperature low enough, quickly enough to—”

Pippa waved a hand to cut her off.

“Vanish it?”

“It would have access to everything that’s ever been vanished to the Nothing, including magical things. Unless—” Hecate’s eyes brightened with a thought.

Just then, the door frame began to creak, and green tendrils appeared in the crack under the door.

“Did you renew your supplies for the portal spell?” Hecate asked urgently. When Pippa looked at the door, and not at Hecate, Hecate swung her around by the shoulders and repeated her question.

“Yes,” Pippa said, wide eyes fixed on Hecate’s. “Yes, I have them, in my room at the hotel.”

“Summon them,” Hecate ordered, and tossed a freezing spell at the base of the door. A second later, the vines burst through the ice she'd conjured with renewed strength. “And mount that broom.”

The door shook and cracked; leaves had come through the keyhole, and finger-thin vines snaked across the floor, heading directly for their feet.

“Hecate—”

Hecate threw another spell, this one of lightning, and a vine sprang up to meet it in the air. It barely paused before it continued, leaping for her outstretched hand.

“Go!” Hecate shouted, and used a blast of wind to blow Pippa out the open window. Then, just as Pippa screeched and the plant surged towards her with a snake’s speed, she turned and leapt out after the broom into the open air.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hecate and Pippa try to stop the attacking plant before they overtake the entire village.

As she jumped, Hecate felt something grab at her boot and slip off again; she prayed that the vine had not managed to take hold or find a gap, even as gravity took hold and she began to fall.

She started to twist a hand, but the spell died on her fingers as Pippa and the broom appeared out of thin air directly in front of her. She landed awkwardly half on top of Pippa and nearly slipped off, but righted herself with a wrenching effort.

“Where to?” Pippa called breathlessly.

“The square,” Hecate answered, putting her arms about Pippa’s waist to keep her balance as they turned. She looked behind her. The plant had followed her out the window, and was now making its way down the stone wall to meet the rest of its writhing vines in the street below.

Pippa guided the broom to the front of the building and out into the square, which was now covered with a gleaming lattice of green-glowing, leafy vines.

“There,” Hecate directed her, “land on the archway, the village gate.”

It was a vestige of an older time, when danger and ceremony both required that a village have a demarcation between it and the world beyond. It rose two stories above the dusty brick and cobbles of the tiny town center, comfortable and imposing at the same time. The plant had not yet reached the arch’s base; it seemed more intent on snaking through the streets and houses of the village, but Hecate suspected it would soon seek wider fields.

Pippa drifted to a halt just above the arch, and Hecate clambered off to stand at the apex. Pippa joined her gingerly, eying the ground below.

“Why the arch?” she wondered aloud.

“Doorways have power,” Hecate reminded her. “And we need a narrow space. Do you have the supplies?”

“Here.”

Pippa opened the kit she had summoned; inside, Hecate found an array of materials, including various chalks, vials filled with powders and liquids, branches of alder and hornbeam, and some loose pieces of paper with writing scribbled all over them.

“Tell me how it’s done,” Hecate demanded as she shuffled through the contents of the kit.

“Hecate, we can’t send it somewhere else—”

Hecate opened her mouth to explain, but Pippa beat her to it.

“Oh! Oh. Oh, you clever witch!”

Hecate shuffled to find her footing at the jostling that Pippa gave her as she shook her arm with excitement.

“If you don’t open a portal at the other end—”

“Yes, and it’s trapped there—”

“And the portal is cut off here—”

“I think it might work.”

They both stopped for breath. Pippa heaved with excitement, and the corners of her eyes crinkled.

“You’re brilliant.”

Hecate tore her eyes away from Pippa’s to check the progress of the vines.

“We don’t have much time. Tell me how it’s done.”

“I can do it,” Pippa assured her.

Hecate shook her head, loathe to lose even these few seconds.

“I’ll open the portal, you take the broom and burn the roots. You always were a better flyer.”

Pippa glanced at the square, now more vine-covered than a few moments before, and nodded.

She spoke faster than Hecate had ever heard her speak, which, to put it lightly, was saying something. She merely focused on the words as they came, and did her best to absorb them all. Still, although they’d hurried, when Pippa finished with a gasp, the vine had begun to climb the supports of the arch.

So Hecate began to chant.

The words poured forth in a torrent, and she infused them with all the power she could muster, her arms akimbo and her loose hair streaming in the wind that had begun to pick up. As she did, Pippa daubed two of the potions over the arch and tossed one of the powders to the ground. The arch began to glow with bright, unearthly power.

“Hecate, it’s not going through the gate,” Pippa shouted over the winding, creaking plant and its sibilant whispers, over Hecate’s unbridled voice filling the square and the wind that whipped at them. “It’s just climbing!”

Hecate finished the spell that opened a tunnel into the Nothing with a gasp. She grabbed Pippa by the arms, shouting to be heard.

“It wants magic,” she explained loudly. “I’m going to give it some.”

“Hecate, _don’t_ —”

“Kill the roots!”

And then, she was gone.

The moment she touched the ground, the plant poured over the ground towards her. On either side, the supports of the arch rose up, strong and solid as they’d stood for hundreds of years. She looked up; Pippa’s frightened face looked down at her.

Then she cast a breathing spell and stepped back.

The moment she entered the Nothing, her lungs stopped; there was no air to breathe, nothing for them to take in. Only the spell she’d cast provided oxygen, and then only as long as she could sustain the spell. She kept walking backwards, the spells she cast playing a Pied Piper’s tune to the vines nearest the gate.

She could still see the square, but as if through a doorway; the key thing was that the plant was following her into the midnight black, drawn by her magic. Not fast enough, though; the plant would reach her long before all of it had crossed the threshold into the Nothing.

Once again, Hecate began to chant, soundlessly, without air, but with intent. It was less structured this time, fractured into a pure calling forth of her native magic from her body. Without any magical environment—without any environment at all—it was immediately apparent that she was used to pulling ambient magic from the matter around her. In the Nothing, it was all down to what she held within herself.

The magic flowed out of her in a pulsing shield, whipped into a towering cylinder that surrounded her. As the first tendrils of the plant reached her, they burned up in the pure power that radiated from Hecate; wave upon wave of the plant circled, pulsed, and broke on the inferno she’d surrounded herself with.

They came faster then, called by the pure column of magic that surrounded her. She could barely see the square, but she could see the never-ending vines that surrounded her, and feel the waning well of power within her chest. Her eyes fluttered, and her arms shook, but she merely raised her arms as high as she could manage and kept chanting.

Her heart began to slow as the spell supplying her with oxygen faltered, and her shield grew thinner. If she could only keep going—

The largest wave of the plant broke, and she caught a glimpse of the square again; it was full of ashes in a winding pattern where the vines had been, and there was Pippa, so far away, her hands outstretched, but Hecate was so _tired,_ and the plants already inside the Nothing still surrounded her—

Hecate fell to her knees, her power drained, her breath gone; she could feel only a flickering connection to the portal, keeping it open. In the ring around her cleared by the last wisps of her magic, the vines slithered forward to take her.

The next thing she knew, she was falling bodily onto the cobblestones of the square . The second she entered the open air, instinct took hold and she took in a huge, shuddering breath that made her chest hurt.

The square was eerily silent, filled only with a dying wind and the sound of Hecate’s gulping breaths.

“Hecate! Are you all right?”

Pippa leaned over her. Hecate coughed and twisted until she was lying on the ground and not tossed halfway over Pippa’s legs.

“Is it—gone—” she gasped.

Pippa nodded. Her face was dusty and smudged, her clothes sooty.

“We did it,” she told Hecate breathlessly. “It’s gone.”

Hecate tried to sit up, but Pippa was just as determined that she should stay down; in the end, Hecate struggled up enough to see that the gateway had extinguished itself when Pippa had transferred her, trapping the plant in the Nothing, and flopped down again.

“Thank you,” she breathed, tears in her eyes. “Thank you.”

She wasn’t sure if she was talking to the Goddess or to Pippa, and she wasn’t sure that she much cared.

Wordlessly, she clutched at Pippa, and they embraced fiercely.

“I thought you’d—” Pippa began, but was interrupted by a shout from the sky.

“Miss Hardbroom!”

“Don’t—” Hecate began, but her voice was too weak to stop Mildred and Dimity from touching down in the center of the square.

“HB!”

Hecate rolled to her side and sat up coughing. A second later, Mildred had scrambled down next to her and seized her in a ferocious hug.

“Mildred _Hubble_ , you reckless—no way of knowing that it was safe to land—and _you_ —” she rounded on Dimity as best she could, “—when _will_ you learn—”

She tasted salt, and realized that tears were tracing paths through the dirt on her face.

“Hecate Hardbroom?”

The tableau froze at the sound of the unfamiliar, imposing voice. Carefully, Hecate extricated herself from Mildred’s arms and shifted around until she could see the two wizards who had landed their brooms at the opposite end of the square.

“I am she,” she croaked. Beside her, Pippa fought to her feet with Dimity’s help.

“No, no, she hasn’t done anything—”

Hecate’s brow furrowed in confusion, but she wasn’t left puzzled for long. The wizards strode forward, and she caught sight of the shiny sigils adorning the clasps of their long, black cloaks.

“Hecate Hardbroom, you stand accused of the willful possession and malicious distribution of an unknown plant—”

A variety of gasps and general sounds of shock and indignation arose from Pippa, Mildred, and Dimity, but Hecate merely shut her eyes tiredly as the taller wizard continued.

“—classified as a Class D dangerous magical item, allowable only by express permit. By the covenant of magic maintained and protected by the Regional Council of Witchcraft of –shire, it is our duty to remand you into custody for the reason of public safety until such time as a judgment can be made against you.”

Dimity and Pippa both cut in at that moment, Pippa going so far as to crowd forward and shake her finger in the wizard’s face.

“You have no right to—”

“She just saved the whole village!”

“Will you submit?” The shorter wizard intoned, avoiding Pippa to stare directly at Hecate. Then, everyone was looking at her, though Pippa continued to argue.

“I _demand_ to speak to the Chairwizard this _instant_ —"

Hecate placed a trembling hand on the ground and pushed herself to standing, with a little help from Mildred. She stood as tall as she was able, well-aware of how much she looked like a wild woman of the woods out to curse the village.

“I submit.”

Even Pippa fell silent; the wizards stepped around her towards Hecate, and she turned with them to stare at Hecate with wide, frightened eyes. The wizards flanked her on either side, each with a grip on one of her arms.

Dimity had pulled Mildred back to stand next to Pippa, who stood still as a statue, tears the only motion she carried. Hecate looked at them all in despair.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and vanished with her escort.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hecate receives three visitors before her trial.

The cottage she’d been placed in was sparse, but far from a prison. Still, it had an institutional air, something manufactured and sterile that set Hecate’s teeth on edge. There was no comfort there, and none of the wild magic that she loved either.

There was little magic at all; the result, no doubt, of the leeching spell she could feel most strongly near the walls, likely ringing the whole cottage. She’d transferred in with the wizards that had come to fetch her away from the village like a thief in the night. They’d walked out, and she strongly suspected it was because they could not gather enough magic to transfer away until they were further away from the spells that bound her.

It was nearly exactly the same as the cottage she’d inhabited the last time she’d run afoul of the Council, thirty years before. She could feel the habits she’d formed then creeping back in, stilling all sense of hope and agency within her. Years with Miss Broomhead had done that, given her a frustrating passivity that it had taken years to shake off. It was more frustrating now, when it came back to her so easily after all this time.

The guards hadn’t locked the door, and Hecate hadn’t tried to leave. She knew from experience that there was no use.  

She’d gauged that by the time the plant had been destroyed, it was nearly three in the morning. She’d been at the cottage all day, the monotony only broken by Pippa’s visit that morning. It had gotten dark by the time they arrived.

Like her escorts, they transferred directly into the sitting room, two of them. She recognized Ursula Hallow, but not the wizard that accompanied her. He was tall and solemn, with rich robes that completed the picture of a well-to-do and well-respected wizard.

Hecate hated them both with an intensity that scared her.

“It’s good to see you where you belong,” Ursula said harshly, and looked her over. “Though if I had my way, you’d be bound in the middle of a patch of that plant you grew.”

Hecate stayed silent. In her experience, there was no use in arguing with people like Ursula Hallow, with power and anger bundled together. No use at all.

“You’re not even sorry for what you did to her,” Ursula hissed, stalking towards Hecate. “What do you do with her magic?” she asked, her eyes darkly malicious. “What twisted, horrible things do you do with that much magic?”

Pippa hadn’t forced her way in. After she’d gotten past the wards the Council had undoubtedly put in place, talked her way in, Hecate suspected, she’d still knocked; still given a care for Hecate’s consent to the matter. Her visit stood in stark contrast to the attack that was Ursula Hallow’s presence in Hecate’s prison.

“I will not apologize,” Hecate told Ursula Hallow. “I was trying to set things right, though I was not responsible for setting them awry in the first place. I will take the fact that you think anything else as a sign of your grief.” She held her head high, trying to mimic a confidence that she did not feel.

She’d broken down, that morning with Pippa, almost the moment she’d seen her. After the night she’d had, the plant, and such a close call, and then her detainment; after all that, Hecate was half-mad with terror and weariness.

“I’m sorry,” she’d told Pippa thickly, whispered into her shoulder as Pippa held her. “I’m so sorry.”

“You’ll be sorry,” Ursula Hallow told her with a disturbing smile. The wizard she’d come with watched her sharply, but said nothing. “After your history, no one will believe that you had nothing to do with this.”

Hecate held her gaze, her expression unchanging. It had only been a matter of time, really, before someone with some motivation found out what she’d done. It was a matter of public record, there for all to reference if they knew what to look for.

Pippa had hushed her, told her she had nothing to apologize for, but Hecate knew this to be false. She’d told Pippa then, in a voice broken by tiredness and tears.

“Do you ever wonder why,” she’d begun in a low voice, “I was so weak when we were girls?” She’d wiped her eyes, pulled back, but let Pippa retain hold of her hands.

She’d explained everything: her father, desperate after her mother’s death to suppress her magic, to control her; her interest piqued by a mention in a spellbook, then more research, until all her careful midnight work resulted in the sudden unleashing of her full powers, at sixteen. The flames that poured out when her father tried to punish her, that she could not halt or put out, that surrounded her without harm as her home burned around her.

“I’m surprised that even Broomhead couldn’t set you straight,” Ursula continued viciously. “I’ve heard of her. I’d have thought if she said someone was reformed, they would be, but I guess we can’t all be right all the time.”

Hecate startled at the name of her old tutor. Her _reform tutor._ She’d been reformed, it was true; shaped again, into a mold that she found closing around her at her lowest moments, rigid and suffocating.

“You were a child,” Pippa had whispered, smoothing the tears from Hecate’s cheeks with her thumbs. “It wasn’t your fault. What was done to you was not your fault. You should never have had to go through that.”

“Esmerelda should not have had to go through that,” Hecate began suddenly, her spine straightening. “But I was not responsible. And if you have read my records,” she added, “then you know that of all the people in Esme’s life, I was the one most likely to understand what she was going through. It was wrong to isolate her,” she ended fiercely.

Ursula’s resolve seemed to waver, but then the anger returned.

“You’ll pay,” she whispered hoarsely. “You’ll never leave this cottage again. You’ll die here.”

Pippa had rocked her , whispered to her. _You disappeared,_ she’d said, in tears herself. _Your house was a burned shell, your father was gone. I thought you’d died._

Hecate had told her the rest then; the quiet trial administered by the newly-minted Council of Magic; the cottage, like this one, bare and unwelcoming, where she’d served out the rest of her teen years into her twenties, reforming herself into a twisted shape dictated by a woman they called Broomhead. She’d cried again, when she described how she’d been released and tried to return to the village she couldn’t remember, where she’d spent her youngest years with her mother, only to find her grandmother gone and her mother’s cottage uninhabitable. How she’d built the potions shop back up, begun reading and experimenting under her own tutelage, how she’d formed a tentative, fragile beginning. How she’d feared her control and what its loss could do, what and _who_ she could destroy, when Pippa arrived, a reminder of her past and her terrible mistakes.

And after all that, Pippa had smiled through her tears and kissed her, sweetly and much too briefly, taking Hecate’s breath away with her when she leaned back.

“I’m sorry you thought it would make a difference, even now,” she’d whispered, bare inches from Hecate’s face. Hecate anchored herself with hands on Pippa’s arms and eyes locked onto Pippa’s. “I see who you are, Hecate Hardbroom. There is nothing in you that I fear.”

It had sparked in Hecate the barest hope, the faintest glimmer of resolve, and those feelings still remained.

“You’re wrong,” Hecate informed Ursula Hallow in a low voice. “If there is justice, you are wrong.” Her voice rang with a certainty she did not feel.

Ursula stared at her with a vicious grin.

“Justice is you in a cage. And that Hubble girl with you. The whole village, if I have to. The harder you fight, the more of them will find themselves standing before the Council to explain their connection to you.”

With that horrible pronouncement, the spark Pippa had woken in Hecate flickered and died.

Ursula Hallow turned on her heel and left. The wizard she’d come with stayed for the moment, though he glanced toward the door.

“Chairwizard.” Hecate guessed, and raised a hand to her forehead, but did not add a greeting. There was nothing good about their meeting.

He looked a bit surprised, but quickly shifted back to passivity.

“Your trial will take place tomorrow. I suggest you think your defense through carefully; the Council deals in facts, not in emotion.”

Hecate’s eyes were hard, harsh words quick on the tip of her tongue, but she reined them in.

“I very much doubt that,” she told him. “And perhaps while I think about my defense, you might think about why the Council feels the need to interject itself into communities and events it does not understand.”

“What do you mean?”

She felt passion building in her on the topic. She’d had years to parse her opinions on the matter, and had never had a better opportunity, or a more pressing reason, to express them.

“I mean that the events leading to the loss of Esmerelda Hallow’s magic did not occur in a vacuum, but neither were they the result of targeted, malicious intent. A blunt attempt to punish the first witch with an unfortunate past will do nothing to restore her magic, nor prevent the same from happening to anyone else.”

The Chairwizard stepped forward.

“Is that a threat, Miss Hardbroom?”

Hecate laughed bitterly. Her words had not penetrated his conviction even the barest inch.

“It was not meant as one. But if you choose to take as such, I fear there is nothing I can say to convince you otherwise.”

The Chairwizard paused, nodded, and reached out a hand to open the door. The same door that they’d escorted Pippa through when the guards had judged that they’d neglected their duty long enough. She’d held back as long as she could, though the two of them had each clamped a hand on her arms.

“We’ll defend you,” she’d promised Hecate. “All of us. Ada and the others—”

She’d been shuffled out before Hecate could say anything else.

Hecate’s tears had dried, and her mind was made up. Ursula Hallow had proven herself vindictive, and the Council inured to the nuances of a witching community. She could stand alone, if it meant that her village, her friends, her—whatever Pippa was or might have become; as long as they were protected, she could bear it.

“Chairwizard,” she started.

He stopped, his hand on the doorknob, and half-turned to listen.

“Traditionally, witches are allowed communication with their families, provided that they do not attempt any deceit while doing so. I am the last of my bloodline, but there are those whom I would consider my family. Am I permitted to write to them?”

The Chairwizard nodded. He snapped his fingers, and parchment and quill appeared in his hands; he must have had some charm that excluded him from the wards around the cottage. A thought occurred to Hecate, that she could take the charm and be gone before anyone knew, but she let it pass out of her mind like smoke from an extinguished ritual candle. Her mission was protection, not self-preservation; not any longer.

She took the writing instruments from him and sat down to write.

_Dear Pippa,_

_Don’t come tomorrow. Please tell them all not to come. I will stand trial and take the decision that is handed me. I fear for you all if you defend me._

She paused at the end, unsure of what to say. In the end, she settled for simplicity and bare, golden truth.

_I love you._

She signed and sealed the letter, though she had to forgo the spell she usually whispered to ensure that no one but the intended recipient read her letters. The Chairwizard took it wordlessly and was gone the next instant, before she had a chance to rethink her message.

In the end, she wouldn’t have changed any of it. To do so would have been selfish. She owed Pippa, Ada, Mildred, and the rest of them so much more than that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not entirely happy with this chapter, so I may tinker with it a bit while I write the next one. Thank you to everyone for reading and commenting! I hope you like it as it wraps up!


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hecate's trial begins, but is interrupted unexpectedly.

In a traditional witching community, trials were held in the center of the village, under the open air no matter the weather, so that all of nature and the coven could bear witness and participate. There were legends of witches rescued from false accusations and corrupt justice by the elements, their tormenters felled by hail or their bonds cut by the horns of stags. There were also stories of the power of the coven to discern and find truth in the most muddled of matters; tales of complex happenings, both crime and accident, whose causes were carefully parsed and determined by the patient and wise process carried through centuries of witching communities.

Hecate could discern none of those traditions or values present in the Council chamber.

To start with, it was a chamber. A high-ceilinged room, dark despite the enormous windows that lined one entire wall, with the Council members seated on a dais at the front of the room and Hecate in a lone chair before them. Some things had changed since the last time she’d been there; for instance, the chair was a more imposing oak monstrosity than the folding chair she’d been on before, and had been permanently installed close enough to the dais to make her crane her neck to see any of the Council members.

She was not bound, but they’d given her a chain to hang, cool and glistening, around her neck. She could feel the way it deadened her magic, but she also could not raise a hand to take it off; something in its composition made her loath to remove it, no matter how hard she thought about it.

“Hecate Hardbroom,” the Chairwizard intoned, “you are accused—”

Then, ludicrous as it seemed, there was a knock at the chamber door, booming and ponderous.

The Chairwizard frowned and put down the piece of parchment he’d been reading from. One of the wizards at the door stepped outside for a moment, then came back.

“Chairwizard, there is a group of witches requesting entrance.”

The Chairwizard barely blinked.

“This is a private trial.”

“They claim the right to witness a trial for a crime against a coven as specified in paragraph D, subsection four of the Council charter.”

Several members of the Council looked up sharply, including Ursula Hallow.

“They may enter,” the Chairwizard said slowly.

Hecate turned and watched with horror as Ada, Pippa, and Mildred entered the room. Behind her, the Chairwizard’s voice boomed out.

“Pippa Pentangle, you are an employee of this Council, and owe no allegiance to the village in question. By what right do you bear witness?”

“I find that in my duties, I have come into possession of knowledge that puts me in direct opposition to the actions of the Council,” Pippa replied smoothly. Her gaze fell nervously on Hecate before she continued. “And you know very well, Geraint, that I submitted my resignation several days ago. I will not support an inquisition.”

“You may witness,” the Chairwizard informed her, “but this is still a trial. None of you may speak.”

Everyone’s attention returned to the dais, including part of Hecate’s. The majority of her thoughts were tangled deep in a web of fears about what the consequences of her friends’ presence in this room would be. She looked at Ursula Hallow; the other witch’s jaw was set and the look in her eye spoke no good.

“Actually—” Mildred piped up. Immediately, all attention returned to the back of the room. Hecate spared a look at the Chairwizard; his nostrils were flared, and he looked as though he were running out of patience. “We’re here to claim the right of _abydwitan_.”

This time, one of the Council members gasped. Hecate nearly joined him.

 _Abydwitan_ was an old tradition, one that preceded the Council by over a thousand years, although Hecate had not heard of one occurring in living memory. It granted the right of trial to the coven itself, and not to any overarching body, but—

“That requires seven times seven times seven coven members, and seven representatives chosen by them,” the Chairwizard announced, his eyes sharp on Mildred’s lanky form. “Three witches are far from sufficient.”

Hecate heard Ursula Hallow mumble something about one of them not even being a proper witch, but her vitriol was lost in the tumult caused by Mildred’s next words.

“We are three of the seven representatives. The rest of the coven is waiting outside; we didn’t think we’d all fit.”

Half the Council stood, led by Ursula Hallow, and began arguing in loud voices. Hecate, however, stared directly at the Chairwizard, her mouth dry. He, in turn, held his gaze on Mildred, who stared back defiantly.

“There are three hundred and forty-three of you?” he asked finally. A hush fell.

“Three hundred fifty,” Mildred replied readily. “Counting the seven chosen to hold the trial.”

Hecate held her breath and watched the Chairwizard.

“Very well,” he said, standing.

“You can’t!” Ursula Hallow cried. “The Council has authority here, no mere _apprentice_ —”

“When this Council was created, it left room for the application of rites and traditions that predate it by dozens of generations,” another witch interrupted. “Apprentice or no, Council or no, if there are seven times seven times seven coven witches who wish to try Hecate Hardbroom as their own, this Council cannot stand before them.”

“Then prove it!”

Several Council members chimed in, each with a new opinion on how to establish the legitimacy of the _abydwitan_ , but Hecate saw the look in the Chairwizard’s eye; she knew that the rest was mere politics.

She turned in her chair and caught Mildred’s eye as her own began to shine with tears. She nodded at her apprentice with a grateful smile, and at Ada. Finally, her gaze fell on Pippa, who was crying freely. The look they traded planted a seed that bloomed and grew in Hecate’s chest, blotting out the fear that had taken root there.

* * *

 

The Council argued for nearly half an hour. When they finished, the result was what Hecate had both expected and hoped: if the number of witches present was sufficient for _abydwitan_ , then the Council would have to cede authority to the coven.

Still, it was somehow a surprise when two wizards appeared on either side of her and pulled her to standing.

“Outside,” the Chairwizard pronounced. “We’ll have to verify the legitimacy of the _abydwitan_ in person.”

They marched her across the hall and to the doors she’d entered through. She looked back, and saw the Council on their feet and following them to the door.

“Are you all right?”

She turned forward again, and found Pippa, Mildred, and Ada walking with her and her guards.

“Fine,” she murmured in response to Ada’s question.

“Take that necklace off her,” Pippa ordered the guard who walked closest to her.

He hesitated.

“She is subject to the _abydwitan_ , and we are its representatives. Take it off _at once_.”

Hecate released a relieved breath when he complied. The necklace was nothing like the plant had been; the return of her ability to use magic was immediate, with no after-effects. Still, the renewed feeling of being cut off from her magic again hadn’t been pleasant.

“Thank you,” she said quietly.

Pippa nodded at her encouragingly, then turned back to the guard.

“Actually, she doesn’t need an escort at all. You may leave.”

This time, both guards ignored her. Despite the circumstances, Hecate glanced at Pippa and smiled a little at how entitled she’d managed to sound, a smile which grew wider when Pippa smiled back.

When they left the Council building, the lawn outside was dominated by the appearance of a large portal, through which Hecate could see the familiar interior of her shop. They stopped to let the Council catch up; when they had done so, Ada and Pippa led the group through the portal.

They did not pause at all in the shop, but proceeded directly to the door and threw it open. A commotion of voices flooded through the door, but Hecate had no time at all to process what it meant before one of the guards guided her through the door and into the square beyond. The vision that greeted her knocked the breath from her lungs as if she’d fallen a great distance from her broom.

The square was _filled_ with witches. Market days were quite busy there, especially in the summer, when witches from the surrounding villages filtered in to barter and buy; those crowds didn’t even begin to compare. There were hundreds of witches, packed tightly into the square and flooding the streets leading off into the rest of the village, all growing quieter as the news that the _abydwitan_ representatives had returned with Hecate filtered through the crowd.

By the gasps behind her, Hecate judged that there was no longer a single member of the Council who doubted that they met the criteria for an _abydwitan_. Relief, however, was not the only thing that brought tears to her eyes. No, the fact that overwhelmed her completely was that as she looked out into the crowd, she realized that she _knew_ these witches.

There was Dimity, of course, with Maud and Enid beside her, and all the other teachers from the village. There was also the witch from whom Hecate purchased her more exotic potions ingredients from the next village over, and the local grocer; the witch for whose familiar Hecate had once brewed the strongest pest treatment she’d ever found a need for; a large group of her students, in neatly-pressed school outfits, accompanied by their parents; the bookseller she favored, the one she didn’t but went to in a pinch, the witch who always encroached on her shop doorway with her stall canopy on market day; the list went on and on and _on_.

Hecate sniffed and raised a hand to wipe her eyes.

“Here,” Pippa whispered, and passed her a handkerchief. Upon viewing the crowd, the guards had fallen back, and Hecate found herself flanked not by impersonal, speechless wizards but by Pippa and Ada.

“Thank you,” Hecate whispered desperately, and meant it more than she could say. “How--?”

“There was an uproar,” Ada told her softly. “It didn’t sit right with anyone here, or for miles around, it seems, when they took you. We barely had to ask before every witch in the district was on her broom and on her way here.”

The tumult of the crowd had turned into a quiet furor, mostly as people turned to each other to ask what happened next.

Pippa squeezed Hecate’s hand, then turned to the Council behind them.

“Can we all agree that the conditions for _abydwitan_ have been met?”

“We can,” the Chairwizard admitted.

Pippa squeezed Hecate’s hand again and gently nudged her forward. The crowd parted to let them through, and Hecate realized that they were headed for the center of the square. When they arrived, they stood in the center of a clear circle of bare stone under the open sky.

Pippa gave Hecate one last squeeze, then let go. She, Ada, and Mildred were joined then by four others: Dimity, Gwen, Maud, and, to Hecate’s surprise and confusion, Ethel Hallow. They formed a circle within the larger circle of the surrounding witches, ringed around Hecate. She wasn’t certain where to look until Ada began to speak.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter ended up being super long compared to the others (3000+ words and counting), so I split it into two; sorry if the stopping point is a bit awkward! There will be one more chapter, plus a short epilogue. Thanks for reading!


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The abydwitan concludes.

“The _abydwitan_ is met. Have you chosen the witches who speak for you all?” Ada called formally.

Though Hecate noticed that most of the crowd held half-sheets of parchment that no doubt had their responses scripted out, there was no hesitation or ragged stumbling over the words.

“ _We have_ ,” the _abydwitan_ responded with one huge, reverberating voice, old, young, sure, and ethereal all at once.

A shiver of magic thrummed in the air, older and stronger than anything Hecate had felt before.

“And who will speak for you?”

“ _These seven here_.”

Hecate felt as if she were at the center of an enormous heart, its beat slow and comforting in its inevitability.

“Hecate Hardbroom,” Ada intoned, “you are charged with the creation of a plant most terrible, with the purpose of stealing the magic of others; of a willful attack using that plant on the witch Esmerelda Hallow, your apprentice, which resulted in the loss of her magic; and of setting loose that plant on this village while its inhabitants slept. What say you?”

Hecate took a deep breath and spoke with the steadiest voice she could manage.

“I did not do those things.”

All seven chanted together, three questions requiring three sworn responses. The crowd remained eerily silent, but a whisper from nowhere rose in the air.

“ _By the earth that gave you life, do you speak truthfully?”_

“I do.”

Once again, the wind was picking up in the square.

“ _By the air that gives you breath, do you speak truthfully?”_

Magic and surety filled her, warm and pulsing. 

“I do.”

_“By the Goddess who gave you magic, do you speak truthfully?”_

“I do!” she cried.

The wind stopped.

Ada’s lone voice broke the uncanny silence that weighed in the air of the village square.

“Sisters, are you satisfied?”

One by one, the representatives of the _abydwitan_ gave their answers from around her.

“I am,” each said in turn: Mildred, Maud, Dimity, and Gwen. When the chain reached Ethel, though, she hesitated, and whispers grew in the crowd. Hecate turned to look, and saw Ethel glance behind her, where Esmerelda stood at the edge of the larger circle of witches.

“Ethel Hallow, don’t you _dare_ —” Hecate heard, but Ursula Hallow was quickly cut off.

Ethel nodded to her sister and turned back to the circle.

“I am.”

“I am,” repeated Pippa swiftly. That brought the circle back to Ada, but the matter was already decided; she had to raise her voice over the whispers and excited murmurs of the witches gathered there. 

“The _abydwitan_ is decided: Hecate Hardbroom has committed no offense, and is free on the earth and under the sky to live as the Goddess wills.”

A cheer went up, and the two circles broke immediately. Hecate was swarmed by the witches in the inner circle, starting with Mildred, who pelted forward only to collide solidly with her in a ferocious hug.

* * *

 

The next few minutes were a cacophony of congratulations accompanied by overwhelming physical contact; it seemed that everyone who had gathered there was eager to pat her on the back or give her a hug. She’d never felt quite so loved or accepted, or more like she’d die if one more person touched her. Or kill someone; she hadn't quite decided. 

With the attuned sense of a long-time friend, Ada seemed able to pinpoint the exact moment that Hecate was ready to transfer herself away just to breathe again. She amplified her voice with a spell and boomed over the square.

“A celebration is in order! Preparations are being made on the grounds outside the village, so please make your way there and get some food!”

The crowd thinned out quickly after that as nearly everyone took Ada’s invitation at face value.

“Thank you,” Hecate breathed when she was able to reach her friend.

Ada clasped her hands warmly.

“You’re welcome, although it was your apprentice’s idea,” Ada answered, a happy twinkle in her eye.

“I meant the _abydwitan_.”

“So did I.” Ada dropped Hecate’s hands. “I should go too, I haven’t actually prepared anything yet. I trust I’ll see you there?” she asked.

“Yes,” Hecate said simply. “I can’t imagine being anywhere else.” And she meant it.

She hugged Ada, then let her go to find Maud and begin to sort out the party.

“Miss Hardbroom?”

Hecate turned and found Esme behind her. When she accepted Esme’s hug, she saw that Ethel was there as well, standing behind her sister and looking determinedly at the ground.

“I couldn’t endanger the _abydwitan_ by standing as one of the representatives—” Esme began to explain, but Hecate merely smiled gratefully and shook her head.

“I understand,” she promised. “And your mother?”

Esme’s gaze fell behind Hecate, on the shop. Hecate hadn’t seen any of the Council members since the _abydwitan_ had ended; she assumed that they had returned through the portal.

“You are always welcome in my home, for as long as you need,” she told Esme seriously. With her hand still on Esme’s shoulder, she turned to Ethel. “Both of you,” she added firmly.

Ethel looked up then, and Hecate saw echoes of her own guilt and fear in the young witch’s eyes.

“We have much to discuss,” she told Ethel quietly, before Ethel could speak. She took on her teaching tone for a moment, its familiarity after weeks of feeling unmoored more comforting than she could have expressed. “But for now, remember: any witch may cause harm, no matter her intentions. But a truly great witch mends the harm she has done.”

Esme took her sister’s hand, and a look passed between them. It corroborated what Hecate had suspected ever since Esme had accompanied her and Pippa into the forest; it also confirmed that whatever discussion and forgiveness had been needed had already been had between sisters.

Hecate squeezed Esme’s shoulder and let go.

“Run along, then,” she told them. “I suspect that Miss Cackle will be producing her signature scones by the dozen right about now.”

They both smiled at her, Ethel a little uncertainly, and walked away, still holding hands.

“And you, Mildred Hubble,” Hecate continued. She turned to regard her apprentice, who she could sense hovering a few feet behind and to her left.

“I’m _so_ sorry—”

“For what?” Hecate asked, with not a little amusement.

“I don’t know,” Mildred said thoughtfully, brought up short. “I suppose I’m just used to apologizing when you say my name like that.”

Hecate stifled a laugh, then grew more solemn.

“Miss Cackle informs me that I owe you a great deal.”

Mildred shrugged.

“It wasn’t really me, Miss Cackle was the one who—”

“The last _abydwitan_ of which I am aware was held nearly three hundred years ago, and its history is not taught by any teacher in this village.” Hecate studied her apprentice, who was looking uncharacteristically embarrassed. “I admit I am curious how you came to have the idea.”

Mildred raised a hand to scrub at the back of her neck.

“D’you remember right after I started in your class? One of your history books went missing—”

Hecate’s eyebrows rose of their own volition.

“Mildred _Hubble_ , are you finally confessing to stealing from my library?”

“You _knew_?”

Hecate’s eyes crinkled at the sight of her apprentice’s indignation.

“Of course I _knew_ , Miss Hubble. I am not completely without my tricks.” She cleared her throat. “I suppose, now that I think about it, that book did have a section on _abydwitan_ and traditional justice. I’m pleased that you read it.”

Mildred bit her lip.

“I really am sorry, and—"

Hecate placed a hand on each of Mildred’s shoulders. They were nearly of a height, and she did not have to bend her head at all to make full eye contact.

“You have done this village proud,” she told her apprentice fiercely. “You have done _me_ proud. You are a true witch, Mildred Hubble, the likes of which I have rarely seen.”

The grin on Mildred’s face could have powered the sun.

“Now go,” Hecate ordered. “We have much to do tomorrow.”

Mildred’s face fell a little.

“The shop’s a mess, isn’t it?”

“It is a rubbish heap,” Hecate pronounced with great satisfaction. “It will take us _days_ to set things to rights.”

Mildred squinted at her.

“There’s no need to sound so pleased about it, HB.”

Hecate cackled.

“Just think of how many potions will need re-shelving,” she said, half stern and half gleeful.

Mildred mock-groaned and made to run away, but not before ducking into Hecate for another quick hug.

“I was worried about you, HB,” she muttered, and made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a sniffle. She unlatched and turned to go. “See you later!”

Once Mildred had run off, Hecate found herself alone, with a lingering sense of disappointment at the fact. The square had nearly emptied, with only the odd witch left to wave to her on their way to the village grounds. Though she tried not to think it, the thought that there was one witch in particular that she wished had stayed back made its way to the front of her mind.

But then, Pippa always had lived for socializing. She’d likely been part of the first wave to arrive at the village grounds, and would be up late talking and laughing far longer than Hecate could stand. Surely she’d see her there?

* * *

 

No matter what Hecate told herself, the sense of disappointment followed her all the way from the square up to her flat. She walked, if only to get a sense of the damage wrought by the plant and subsequent events on the lower floors.

The shop itself was, as she’d told Mildred, a complete mess. Her workshop was almost entirely destroyed, with every furnishing somehow tipped over or damaged; dark scorch marks covered the floor, concentrated near the area where she and Pippa had originally stored the plant samples. She was careful not to touch anything; there was no telling if the plant had left residue behind, or what contact with some leftover part of the plant might do. 

She headed up the stairs, let herself into her flat, and let her shoulders sag in relief.

A bath and a change of clothes later, she felt like quite a new witch, ready to take on the onslaught of social interaction that awaited her on the village grounds. She was waylaid in her mission, however, when she noticed a clean white envelope on her dining table that had not been there the last time she passed.

 _Dear Hecate,_ it read, _I’m sorry to have to take off like this, but I’ve been called away by a client in another district. I’m sure you’ll have a lot to say about how I’ve organized your workroom; you’ll just have to excuse me this time, as I couldn’t leave you to clean it up alone. Please write to me, instead of keeping it all in for another thirty years. Anything sent to my parents will reach me._

The letter was signed with the closing ‘sincerely.’ The casual tone and merely-friendly ending sparked a sick ache in her chest. Apparently, Pippa had decided to take several steps back from what had passed between them. It felt as though she’d been flying, only to have the broom disappear from beneath her.

But before she could quite start to fall, a clatter sounded on one of the lower floors, accompanied by a curse uttered in a distinct, familiar voice. In an instant, Hecate had transferred to the ground floor.

It was not at all as she’d left it. The knocked-over potion bottles and ingredients had all been placed on the counter to be sorted later, and the floor had been swept up. When she looked into the workroom, all the furniture had been reestablished, save for the heaviest cabinet. Pippa stood over it, muttering angrily.

“It’s spelled to be unenchantable,” Hecate informed her, in a voice much calmer and in-control than she felt. “That’s where I keep my personal research.”

Pippa whirled on her, her mouth open in surprise.

“Hecate! I thought you’d be with Ada. I’m sorry for—”

“For what?” Hecate snapped. She felt wild with some emotion that she could not put her finger on, and could not hold herself to the calm voice she’d started with. “For not running away fast enough?”

Pippa’s face grew uncharacteristically hard to read.

“I thought perhaps you’d want some space.”

“And you call me a coward,” Hecate muttered, scanning the room and what Pippa had done to it to avoid looking at the other witch.

“What did you say?” Pippa demanded in a broken tone that was just a little too loud.  

Hecate tilted her head and looked determinedly at a point just past Pippa’s right shoulder.

“You kissed me. When I wrote you, I told you—” she began through clenched teeth. She stopped and closed her eyes. There was no use pressing for something Pippa obviously didn’t want. “Just go. It’s a long flight.”

“I shouldn’t have kissed you,” she heard Pippa say desperately. “I knew you were with Ada—” Hecate’s eyes flew open, “—and I don’t want to ever come between you, but—I can’t be here right now,” she broke off, as if to herself.

“ _With_ Ada?”

Pippa looked at her in confusion.

“I—”

Hecate cut her off.

“You mean Ada and I, together. Romantically.” She stepped closer to Pippa gingerly. “And if we weren’t?”

Pippa’s face was still difficult to read, although it was certainly serious.

“Are you?”

Hecate shook her head.

“ _No_. She will always be my best friend, but we have never been—together.”

“Oh.”

Hecate took another step forward, then another, hope growing again in her chest.

“Is that why you were leaving?” she whispered. She was only a few feet from Pippa then, close enough to hear her quiet answer.

“Yes.”

“But you don’t regret kissing me,” Hecate guessed. _Hoped._

Pippa looked up at her with wet eyes.

“Not anymore.”

Hecate closed the distance between them, standing bare inches from Pippa. Pippa’s eyes flickered downwards, and she slipped her hands into Hecate’s.

“Then perhaps you should do it again,” Hecate murmured boldly.

Pippa smiled and tipped her head up.

“Perhaps I should,” she whispered back.

And so she did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I've just returned to writing fic after a while away, and the response I got to this fic was really reassuring and inspiring :) There's an epilogue still to come-- I have some things I want to cover in it, but if you have any lingering questions about the fic, drop me a comment to remind me to answer them if I can!
> 
> (I should also mention-- I'm also randolhllee on tumblr, and I would love to talk to people more there if you'd like :)


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